Dave Bautista in last year’s Hotel Artemis. Photo : Global Road

Things just got spicy for Dave Bautista. He’s reteaming with his Blade Runner 2049 director Denis Villeneuve for the upcoming remake of Dune.


Variety reports that the former WWE wrestler turned Guardians of the Galaxy megastar will join Timothée Chalamet and Rebecca Ferguson in the upcoming film. It’s based on the classic 1965 Frank Herbert novel that was famously turned into a 1984 film by David Lynch. Eric Roth wrote the script.

Chalamet is playing the film’s lead, Paul Atreides, who attempts to lead a revolution to regain control of the planet Arrakis as well as the valuable spice trade take from his family. Ferguson is his mother, Lady Jessica, and Bautista will play “Beast” Rabban, the “the sadistic nephew of a baron who oversees Arrakis,” according to the Hollywood Reporter.


While Bautista is an excellent addition to basically any cast , the better news here is the idea that more casting means Villeneuve’s film is getting closer to production, which means closer to release too. Maybe we’ll see Dune in the summer or fall of 2020?

When we do, though, that probably won’t be the last of it. According to Herbert’s son Brian, the film will only cover the first half of the book—so Legendary, which is producing, obviously sees this as the start of a franchise. That’s good news for Bautista, who may be on his way out of another big franchise.

Dune does not yet have a release date but Bautista will next be seen (by his own admission, so it’s not a spoiler) in Avengers: Endgame.

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