‘Dune’ Director Denis Villeneuve ‘Banned’ Cell Telephones on Set

A Dune set isn’t any place for cell telephones or social media, in accordance with director Denis Villeneuve. 

In a brand new and wide-ranging interview with the Los Angeles Instances revealed Thursday, Dec. 26, the filmmaker, 57, defined why solid and crew on his tasks usually are not inspired to convey sure units on set. 

“Cinema is an act of presence,” the Academy Award-nominated director mentioned. “When a painter paints, he needs to be completely targeted on the colour he’s placing on the canvas.”

“It’s the identical with the dancer when he does a gesture. With a filmmaker, it’s a must to try this with a crew, and everyone has to focus and be fully within the current, listening to one another, being in relationship with one another,” he advised the Los Angeles Instances. 

Villeneuve added, “So cellphones are banned on my set too, since day one. It’s forbidden. While you say lower, you don’t need somebody going to his telephone to have a look at his Fb account.”

Earlier within the interview, the director shared one more reason he isn’t so keen on know-how at instances.

“I really feel that human beings are dominated by algorithms proper now,” Villeneuve mentioned. “We behave like AI circuits. The methods we see the world are narrow-minded binaries. We’re disconnecting from one another, and society is crumbling in some methods. It’s scary.”

Villeneuve referred to having the ability to have fixed entry to others as “addictive.”

“It’s compulsive,” he mentioned. “It’s like a drug. I’m very tempted to disconnect myself. It might be contemporary air.”

The primary installment of Villeneuve’s Dune movie adaptation of Frank Hubert’s novel arrived in October 2021, with Timothée Chalamet (Paul Atreides), Zendaya (Chani) and Oscar Isaac (Duke Leto Atreides). The second half was launched in March 2024.

A-listers Austin Butler (Feyd-Rautha), Florence Pugh (Princess Irulan) and Anya Taylor-Pleasure (Paul’s unborn sister Alia Atreides) joined for Dune: Half Two.

Although followers expressed frustrations in seeing Zendaya, 28, have solely seven minutes of screentime within the first half, Chalamet, 29, couldn’t have requested for a greater costar.

“She was like a breath of contemporary air,” the A Full Unknown star advised PEOPLE in a joint October 2021 interview with the actress. “She had an important power.”

In October, Villeneuve advised Deadline he was within the “writing zone” already for a 3rd movie, which might adapt Hubert’s Dune: Messiah. Nevertheless, he does see Dune and Dune: Half Two as “one entity” and a “completed” film.

“However sure, like Herbert did with Dune: Messiah, I feel it’ll be an important thought to do one thing fully totally different,” the filmmaker advised the outlet. “The story takes place like 12 years after the place we left the characters on the finish of Half Two. Their journey, their story is totally different this time, and that’s why I all the time say that whereas it’s the identical world it’s a brand new movie with new circumstances.”

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Dune and Dune: Half Two at the moment are streaming on Max.