Dune fans already had a lot of reasons to be excited thanks to the upcoming feature film with an absolutely star-studded cast, but now there's some big news on the Dune front that few could have seen coming. A Dune TV show is in the works, and it will be focused on female characters from the Dune universe. Fittingly, the show is titled Dune: The Sisterhood. Here's what you need to know about the new project.
Dune: The Sisterhood has received a straight-to-series order and will air on the upcoming streaming service from WarnerMedia, which has yet to receive an official name. The show will take place in the Dune universe, but it won't be a take on the Dune plot with all the male characters changed to female. No, THR reports it will explore the future via a group of characters known as the Bene Gesserit.
The Bene Gesserit order of women is mysterious, with the members mastering their bodies and minds to gain abilities. These women have plans of their own that will eventually take them to the planet Arrakis... a.k.a. Dune. The Dune universe is set in a distant future, when humans have spread throughout the stars to hundreds and thousands of planets ruled by the Padishah Emperor.
Notably, the pilot for Dune: The Sisterhood will be helmed by Denis Villeneuve, who wrote, produced, and directed the upcoming feature. Jon Spaihts, known for writing Doctor Strange, The Mummy (2017), and of course Dune (2020 with Villeneuve), will write the script for the show. Both men will executive produce, along with Brian Herbert, Byron Merritt and Kim Herbert, on behalf of the estate of original Dune author Frank Herbert.
Dune: The Sisterhood is produced by Legendary Television, which is a division of Legendary Entertainment. Legendary has grand plans for all things Dune, including video games, a comic series, and digital content packages on top of the TV show and feature film. The upcoming movie will likely be the first of a two-parter, although that has not been settled yet. Dune: The Sisterhood has the potential to air as an ongoing series, as it has not been described as "limited" or "mini."
If Legendary has a hit with Dune, then it's entirely possible that Dune will be the next big franchise to take the entertainment biz by storm. It already has big plans, and WarnerMedia's streaming service could have the show it needs to launch as a competitive streamer. There are after all a lot of streaming services already available and in the works, and they can't all have the loaded library of Disney going in. And Friends' popularity can't be the sole draw!
If you've kept up with news about the Dune feature coming out next year, you'll note that the plot of the TV show shouldn't need to interfere with whatever happens in the movie. (Or movies, as the case may be.) There's no given window in which Dune: The Sisterhood could premiere, but it's likely a ways off. That said, the Dune movie premieres November 20, 2020, and the WarnerMedia streaming service will do a beta launch late this year.
For some streaming options sooner rather than later, check out our 2019 Netflix premiere guide. If you want some Dune material ahead of the TV show and new movie, there's plenty of book material to keep anybody busy for a while, and the original Dune movie is available streaming on Amazon Prime.
