There is a method to Denis Villeneuve’s creative madness.
The highest-grossing film of 2024 so far, Dune: Part Two, is a masterful, cinematic feat, and fans of the sci-fi epic can hardly wait for the next confirmed adaption, Dune: Messiah. Standing at 2 hours and 46 minutes, the second installment, which stars Florence Pugh, Zendaya, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin, and Timothée Chalamet, outshines its predecessor with another explosive experience that ends on a nail-biting cliffhanger. But just when you thought the movie couldn’t be any grander, the deleted scenes say otherwise.
In an interview with Collider’s CEO Steve Weintraub, director Denis Villeneuve revealed that Dune: Part Two could have been much longer than its official runtime. The deleted scenes alone could have extended the movie to over four hours long! Unfortunately, for Dune fans, Villeneuve holds a very strong opinion about scenes that didn’t make the final cut and has chosen to never release Dune: Part Two‘s deleted scenes in digital form or DVD. But what exactly are we missing?
‘Dune: Part Two’s Denis Villeneuve Priorities Storytelling Over Runtime
From Arrival starring Amy Adams to Blade Runner 2049 starring Ryan Gosling and Harrison Ford, Denis Villeneuve has shown countless times that his storytelling and directing talents are the works of an ambitious auteur. When creating Dune: Part Two, Villeneuve, a hard-core fan of Frank Herbert‘s book, wanted to give audiences a perfect runtime that prioritized the story without drastically straying away from the source material.
As per Collider’s interview, Villeneuve comments on his unique filmmaking beliefs, “The runtime of a movie, for me, the length of the movie is based on what the story needs…it’s about the storytelling, and I felt that I wanted to create a momentum. I wanted an energy in the movie that I was looking for that excited me, and I thought that was the perfect runtime…” More importantly, when discussing deleted scenes, the writer-director often opts out of releasing his “darlings.” To Villeneuve, cutting scenes is as painful as a samurai cutting his gut open. “When it’s dead, it’s dead, and it’s dead for a reason,” he admits to Weintraub. But then again, the job of a director comes with sacrifices.
Denis Villeneuve isn’t the only box office director who doesn’t release deleted scenes to fans. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Oppenheimer‘s Christopher Nolan and the legendary Martin Scorsese are also ones to generally refuse the release of cut scenes. What’s done in the editing room is a hard business; the final results are what the creators finesse as the best cut for the big screen. Because of the visual magnitude of Dune: Part Two, it’s disappointing to hear Villeneuve voice no future plans for the deleted scenes, as it was speculated important characters were robbed of screen time.
Who Was Cut From ‘Dune: Part Two’?
Dune: Part Two picks off right where the first installment leaves us — Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) with the Fremen. After House Atreides and Duke Leto (Oscar Isaac) are betrayed and murdered by the Harkonnens, Paul and his mother, Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson), are left to persuade the native inhabitants of Arrakis on a dangerous path of liberation, love, and revenge. The blockbuster brings back a handful of fan-favorite characters into the mayhem, like Chani (Zendaya), Stilgar (Javier Bardem), Baron Vladimir Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgård), and Gurney Halleck (Josh Brolin); however, a few faces are missing from Part Two.
One significant character absent from the modern epic is Mentat Thufir Hawat (Stephen McKinley Henderson). As stated by Warner Bros, the actor was officially listed among the cast and crew members when filming began in July 2022, but failed to appear in the final version. This is surprising since Thufir Hawat is an essential mentor to Paul in the books, who survives the massacre, and later has a major influence on House Harkonnen. (He was also in 2021’s Dune.) Removing Hawat from Part Two was a “painful” decision for Denis Villeneuve, he tells Entertainment Weekly, but was a necessary move in order to have the Bene Gesserit take the spotlight. “He’s a character I absolutely love, but I decided right at the beginning that I was making a Bene Gesserit adaptation. That meant that Mentats are not as present as they should be.”
Tim Blake Nelson Has “No Hard Feelings” With Denis Villeneuve
Interestingly, another Mentat was supposed to debut in Dune: Part Two, as Tim Blake Nelson was cast in an undisclosed role. Fans speculate, however, that Nelson was to appear as the Imperial Agent Count Fenring, a Mentat and husband to Lady Margot (Léa Seydoux), per The Hollywood Reporter. Although Villeneuve and Nelson never confirmed the specifics of his role, Lady Margot is seen in the latest film and her husband, who acts as an influential friend to Emperor Shaddam IV (Christopher Walken), is absent. Speaking with Movieweb, Nelson expressed his disappointment with the removal of his character:
“I don’t think I’m at liberty to say what the scene was. I’d leave that to Denis [Villeneuve] if he wants to talk about it. I had a great time over there shooting it. And then he had to cut it because he thought the movie was too long. And I am heartbroken over that, but there’s no hard feelings. I loved it, and I can’t wait to do something else with him and we certainly plan to do that.”
Knowing Villeneuve wanted to focus on the Bene Gesserit, it makes sense why Mentats were removed from Part Two. Thufir Hawat and Count Fenring have key roles in the Dune novels, so hope is not all lost. In fact, one cut scene from 2021’s Dune made it into Dune: Part Two, involving Gurney Halleck strumming a tune while playing on an instrument called the Baliset. With Dune: Messiah in production, more opportunities will arise for new and old faces to find their place within the live-action Dune universe.
