You know a movie’s gearing up to begin shooting when casting reports start trickling in. In the case of Dune: Part Two, it was revealed earlier this week that Black Widow star Florence Pugh is being eyed to play Princess Irulan Corrino. Today now brings word that Elvis star Austin Butler is being eyed to play Feyd-Rautha, another integral character from Frank Herbert’s original novel.
Although the internet suggested actors like Robert Pattinson and Bill Skarsgård for the role played by Sting in David Lynch’s Dune movie, and Eternals star Barry Keoghan sounded game to tackle the role of Baron Vladimir Harkonnen’s younger nephew, Deadline has heard that Austin Butler is in negotiations to play the character. Butler is months away from finally being seen onscreen as Elvis Presley in Baz Luhrmann’s biopic about the King of Rock and Roll, so if the actor ends up reaching a deal to play Feyd-Rautha in Dune: Part Two, this would be another major milestone for his film career.
Naturally you can’t do a faithful adaptation of Dune without the involvement of the Harkonnens, but in filmmaker Denis Villeneuve’s movie chronicling the first half of the 1965 book, the family was only represented through Stellan Skarsgård’s Baron Harkonnen and Dave Bautista’s Glossu Raban, Feyd-Rautha’s older brother. Villeneuve didn’t include Feyd-Rautha in Dune because there were enough characters packed into the first movie, but rest assured, we’ll be seeing a lot of him in Dune: Part Two. Like his uncle, Feyd-Rautha is cruel and cunning, and he becomes a major adversary to Paul Atreides, played in this continuity by Timothée Chalamet.
Along with starring in Elvis, Austin Butler scored attention on the movie front in 2019 for his role as Tex Watson, a member of the Manson Family, in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. In the TV realm, Butler has appeared in shows like Zoey 101, Switched at Birth, The Carrie Diaries and The Shannara Chronicles, and he’s also starring in the upcoming Apple TV+ miniseries Masters of the Air. Again, it’s not a done deal yet that he’ll bring Feyd-Rautha to life in Dune: Part Two, but right now, it’s looking like a strong prospect.
Warner Bros. and Legendary announced that Dune: Part Two would move forward less than a week after Dune premiered in theaters and on HBO Max. Along with introducing characters like Feyd-Rautha and Princess Irulan Corrino, the sequel will also feature bigger roles for roles for folks like Zendaya’s Chani and Javier Bardem’s Stilgar. Filming is expected to begin this summer.
Dune: Part Two arrives in theaters on October 20, 2023, and Denis Villeneuve has also expressed interest in making an adaptation of Dune Messiah to round out this cinematic saga as a trilogy. CinemaBlend will continue passing along significant updates on the sequel’s progress and news on many other upcoming movies.
