From the Streets of Gotham to the Desert Dunes of Arrakis

Hard at work completing the script of his third and final ‘Dune’ epic, ‘Dune: Messiah’, it looks as if star director Denis Villanueva is keenly scouting his next big villain and is honing in on ‘The Batman’ and ‘Mickey17’ star Robert Pattinson.

It’s rumored Pattinson is being courted to play the villainous role of Scytale, a Face Dancer( a sterile race of ‘metamorphic transhumans’ engineered by the Bene Tleiaxu), who plots against Paul Atreides and the royal family, gifting Paul a ‘ghola’ of Duncan Idaho with hopes of figuring out how to restore a ghola’s memories.

In 2021, the initial film of the sci-fi epic trilogy, ‘Dune’, brought in $410M globally while being nominated for ten Academy Awards and winning six including Best Original Score, Best Cinematography, and Best Production Design. In 2024, the second film of the trilogy, ‘Dune 2’, released garnishing even higher praise raking in $714M globally and being praised by many, filmmaker Steven Spielberg calling it “one of the most brilliant science fiction films I have ever seen.”, though only receiving five Academy Award Nominations and winning two.

Pattinson is currently signed on for The Batman: Part II for dir. Matt Reeves and The Odyssey for dir. Christopher Nolan whom he recently worked with on Nolan’s Tenet before begin named as Reeves’ Batman. If offered and accepted, Pattinson would be joining a start studded cast including the likes of Timothee Chalamet(both prev. worked on Netflix’s ‘The King’), Zendaya(co-starring in upcoming ‘The Drama’ for A24), Florence Pugh, Jason Momoa, and Josh Brolin and many others.

Dune: Messiah begins filming this summer and is currently expected to release Dec. 18, 2026 per Warner Bros.