Timothée Chalamet's Paul Atreides Returns In Dune: Part Three First Look Image

[UPDATE: This article now includes the character posters for "Dune: Part Three."

As of this writing, Denis Villeneuve's next film, "Dune: Part Three," is scheduled to be released in theaters on December 18, 2026. But on March 16, 2026, Timothée Chalamet shared an exclusive image of his character Paul Atreides on his Instagram Story. His face is partially covered by a mask, but his blue eyes (altered by the psychedelic spice Melange) are peering out through it. Perhaps shockingly, Paul's face appears scarred and burned.

Warner Bros. Pictures

"Dune: Part Three" will, as previously reported, be an adaptation of Frank Herbert's 1969 sequel to "Dune," "Dune Messiah." We here at /Film have been tracking developments as they broke, including the news that Rebecca Ferguson, who played Paul's mother, Lady Jessica, in the first two Villeneuve "Dune" movies, will have little screen time in the next film. She said in interviews that she wasn't meant to be in the film at all, but that Villeneuve included her in a few scenes at the last minute.

There have already been some alterations to Herbert's texts in Villeneuve's movies. Most notably, Paul's young sister Alia remained unborn in the films, whereas in the original book, she grew into something of a mystical child. In Villeneuve's vision, Alia was an adult, played by Anya Taylor-Joy in psychic visions. Although Frank Herbert wrote six novels in his "Dune" book series, Denis Villeneuve has said (in an interview with Empire Magazine) that "Dune: Part Three" will wrap up his film trilogy. Whether other filmmakers intend to pick up the baton and continue making "Dune" movies based on Herbert's books remains to be seen.

For now, we have an image of Paul.

For those unfamiliar with the "Dune" novels, "Dune: Part Three" seems to be following "Dune Messiah" pretty closely. The book is set about 12 years after the events of the last novel, after Paul Atreides has taken control of the desert planet Arrakis, the galaxy's only known source of a hallucinogenic spice that is necessary for space travel. He has instigated a blood jihad across worlds and has essentially taken over most of the known universe. Indeed, the jihad has already gotten out of hand, and he is responsible for the deaths of billions and billions of people. He is convinced, however, that this was actually the best possible outcome for humans; some psychic visions revealed that things could have gone much worse.

The book also involves clones (Jason Momoa will return as a clone of his deceased character, Duncan Idaho) and new sects vying for access to Paul, each with an agenda of their own. As we all know, the plots of the "Dune" movies are complex and involve an ongoing, multi-faceted attack on the shifting seats of power. "Dune: Part Three" promises to retain a lot of that complexity, although its fealty to the source material remains to be seen. Filming on "Dune: Part Three" has officially wrapped, and Warner Bros. released character posters shortly after Chalamet's post.

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The images above are the first in what will likely be a yearlong media blitz leading up to the release of Villeneuve's film. We'll give more updates as they come.