Dave Bautista is best known for his role of Drax in the two Guardians of the Galaxy movies. While he was supposed to be gearing up for a third outing right about now, that movie is on hold with no solution to the movie's director problems currently in sight. Dave Bautista, however, isn't slowing down his glowing career, and he's now set for a different sort of sequel. It's been revealed that the former WWE star will be reteaming with director Denis Villeneuve for the upcoming new adaptation of Dune.
While the role that Dave Bautista will play was not announced, Variety reports that the actor has joined the production which will star Timothee Chalamet and also include Rebecca Ferguson.
The project will see Bautista reunite with Denis Villeneuve who previously directed him in Blade Runner 2049, in which the actor had a small, but memorable role. One only hopes the new role in Dune will give Bautista a bit more to do. His performance in the opening of Blade Runner was so good the only problem was there wasn't more of it.
Dune tells the story of Paul Atreides (Chalamet) whose family takes control of the planet Arrakis, the only home in the galaxy to a valuable spice. Because of that scarcity, many other noble families have an interest in the planet, which leads to conflict over the world.
This will be the second attempt to adapt Frank Herbert's novel Dune for the big screen. David Lynch's famous 1984 version, while certainly not shying away from the massive scope of the project, had numerous behind the scenes difficulties due to that scope, which has resulted in the film becoming a controversial topic. Numerous different edits of the film exist, though only the original theatrical version was overseen by Lynch.
Dune is a massive story and if past is prologue then bringing it to the screen will be a herculean task. However, many would likely have said the same thing about trying to make a sequel to Blade Runner and somehow Denis Villeneuve succeeded beyond all expectations in that endeavor. Of course, it means that expectations are only that much higher for Dune. How the director will turn the massive book into a comprehensible film that isn't five-hours long is anybody's guess. Part of the strategy is that there will actually be two films that cover the book. So we may actually end up with five hours worth of movie.
Currently, Dune is the next project Dave Bautista is officially signed up for. While it's unclear when the film may start shooting, and it's been given no release date yet, with the delay in the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise, he has nothing else on the docket. Having said that, he'll have a busy 2019 as he has several films slated for release this year that are all in post-production, including Avengers: Endgame and another Escape Plan movie with Sylvester Stallone.
