“Dune 3 ”teaser reveals Robert Pattinson's 'extraordinary' new look, an aged Timothée Chalamet, and pregnant Zendaya

Mike MillerTue, March 17, 2026 at 4:28 PM UTC

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Timothée Chalamet and Zendaya in 'Dune: Part Two'Credit: Niko Tavernise/Warner Bros.

The visions are clear now.

The epic first teaser for Dune: Part Three has arrived from the outer world, and it seems like director Denis Villeneuve is leading us to paradise.

Based on Frank Herbert's Dune Messiah, the second book in the beloved, highly influential series, Villeneuve's third installment takes place 17 years after the events of 2024's Dune: Part Two.

The teaser features a first look (outside of character posters released on Monday) at an aged-up Timothée Chalamet as Paul Atreides, a.k.a. Lisan al-Gaib, along with his concubine Chani (Zendaya), wife Princess Irulan (Florence Pugh), sister Alia (Anya Taylor-Joy), general and friend Stilgar (Javier Bardem), mother Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson), and, in a possible surprise for non-book readers, the return of his best friend and protector, Duncan Idaho (Jason Momoa), who was slain in the first film.

We also get our first good look at an exciting new character, Robert Pattinson's Scytale, a shapeshifting member of a fanatical secret society on a mission to overthrow Paul, now emperor of the known universe. Pattinson, who sports buzzed blonde hair and bleached eyebrows for the role, teased at a special event on Monday that his character might not be as evil as he first seems.

"You can't really tell whose side he's on, which is kind of what makes him fun and interesting," Pattinson told the audience, who were treated to an advanced sneak peek at the teaser. "It's an extremely fun character to play, and the look for it is quite extraordinary."

The teaser opens with Paul and Chani reunited after she left him at the end of the second film (understandably upset by his decision to marry another woman for political reasons). Here, they seem like a happy couple again, canoodling in the desert and ruminating on baby names, indicating that Chani is now pregnant.

Timothee Chalamet in 'Dune: Part Two'Credit: Warner Bros. / Courtesy Everett Collection

But things aren't all peaceful for the clairvoyant emperor. The teaser shows several intense battles as Paul wages his holy war across the galaxy, including images of him taking the field himself and Stilgar dealing out death on what appears to be a new world inhabited by warriors who look almost like samurai in their armor.

"War feeds on itself," Paul says in voiceover. "The more I fight, the more enemies fight back."

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We also get a better look at Taylor-Joy's Alia, who appears for a few seconds in the first film via a vision of the future. The actress teased the character's motivation at Monday's event, saying, "Alia has a very intense blessing-curse situation. She carries the weight and the wisdom of generations and generations in her head. She's never in a singular conversation. It's kind of all everything, everywhere, all at once."

What Alia cares about more than anything, she added, "is her love and devotion to her brother, because that is the only person who's ever made her feel like she makes sense. He's understood her from before she was even born, and she will do anything for him — to various degrees of insanity."

At the same event, Villeneuve teased that Dune: Part Three is a significant departure from the previous two films.

"It will be a very different film, very different, a new movie, but with a different tone, with a different rhythm, with a different pace," he explained. "If the first movie was more of a contemplation, like a movie about a boy exploring a new world, and the second one being a war movie, this one is a thriller. It's a more action-packed and more dense film, more muscular than the two others."

As for what the film is about, the director revealed, "We see Paul dealing with the consequences of having too much power, and him trying to figure out how to get out of this cycle of violence. And, of course, he's an emperor who can see the future, so he's kind of invincible, and we follow people trying to overthrow him, and it's a quite intense story. But at its heart, it's still a love story. The heart beat of the film is still the relationship between Paul and Chani."

Zendaya as Chani in 'Dune: Part Two.'Credit: Niko Tavernise/Warner Bros.

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If that doesn't spark enough excitement, Villeneuve confirmed another detail sure to delight fans: Hans Zimmer, who won an Oscar for Best Original Score for the first film, is returning to compose the third.

"Hans is working on the music already," he confirmed. "But…like the movie is different, the score would be different. And it's something that Hans is very excited about, and approaching with the same spirit as the two first films."

Audiences can finally return to Arakis when Dune 3 hits theaters on Dec. 18.

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