Given that Denis Villeneuve decided to adapt Frank Herbert’s sci-fi novel Dune across two movies rather than one, like David Lynch did in the ‘80s, there was a time where there was no guarantee that the second part would ever be made. Fortunately, just a few weeks after Dune’s release in 2021, Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary announced that Dune: Part Two was moving forward, and now we’re a little over four months away from its release on the 2023 movies calendar. But even before Part Two was a done deal, a Max spinoff series called Dune: The Sisterhood was in development, and today brings word of some major casting shakeups for the prequel show.
The Crown’s Olivia Williams and The Witcher’s Jodhi May have been brought in to play two key roles in Dune: The Sisterhood. May is taking over the role of Tula Harkonnen from Shirley Henderson, who exited the show back in February, and May has been selected to play Empress Natalya in place of Indira Varma, who needed to exit the project due to a scheduling conflict. Deadline also mentioned in its report that Lou’s Anna Foerster will direct multiple episodes of The Sisterhood, filling in the shoes of Johan Renck, who also left in February.
Dune: The Sisterhood was announced back in June 2019, a little under a year before then-HBO Max launched. While the project started to make significant progress towards the end of 2022, the aforementioned departures resulted in it being put on hold. Now with the hiring of two new actors and a director, it would seem that The Sisterhood is back on steadier ground. However, with the writers strike ongoing, plus whatever remaining elements of preproduction need to be ironed out, we’re presumably a long ways off from production finally beginning.
Adapted from the book Sisterhood of Dune by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson, Dune: The Sisterhood takes place 10,000 years before Paul Atreides’ ascension to power in the original Dune tale, and follows Jodhi May’s Tula Harkonnen and her sister, Emily Watson’s Valya, combatting forces that threaten the future of mankind and establishing the Bene Gesserit. This is the group whose members go through years of physical and mental conditioning to obtain special abilities that they then use to guide humanity towards enlightenment. The Sisterhood’s main cast also includes Sarah-Sofie Boussnina, Shalom Brune-Franklin, Faoileann Cunningham, Aoife Hinds, Chloe Lea, Travis Fimmel, Mark Strong, Jade Anouka and Chris Mason.
Keep your eyes peeled for more updates on Dune: The Sisterhood’s progress, including when it will premiere to Max subscribers. You’re also free to look through the best Max original shows available to watch now, and don’t forget that Dune: Part Two opens in theaters on November 3.
