The first trailer for Dune: Part Three has been released, offering a glimpse of Robert Pattinson’s unrecognisable new villain. The 39-year-old actor, best known for his role in Twilight, plays the shapeshifting antagonist Scytale in Denis Villeneuve’s final instalment of the trilogy, due out this December.
In Frank Herbert’s novels, Scytale is a Tleilaxu Face Dancer – a genetically engineered shapeshifter and master manipulator central to a conspiracy to overthrow Emperor Paul Atreides, played by Timothée Chalamet. The trailer shows Pattinson with a bleached-blond buzz cut, shaved eyebrows and a signature nose plug as he walks among Fremen natives.
The film also sees the return of Zendaya, Javier Bardem, Rebecca Ferguson, Florence Pugh, Anya Taylor-Joy and Isaach De Bankolé. In the trailer, Paul tells Lady Jessica: “War feeds on itself. The more I fight, the more enemies fight back,” as scenes of conflict unfold.
Before the trailer dropped, Chalamet shared first-look character posters showing Paul in a Fremen stillsuit with red scarring and deep wrinkles around his eyes – a departure from his appearance in the first two films. Dune: Part Three is expected to pick up directly after the events of Part Two, with Paul already in power and dealing with the consequences of his holy war.
Speaking to IndieWire in November, Pattinson described filming in the Arabian desert: “It was so hot that I just couldn’t question anything. I did not have a single functioning brain cell. I was just listening to Denis: ‘Whatever you want!’” The film is based on Herbert’s second novel, Dune Messiah.
