Although the first movie lacked Chani’s screentime, Zendaya says her character will play a much bigger role in Dune: Part 2.

Denis Villeneuve’s remake of the Frank Herbert sci-fi epic Dune took a similar gamble to what Andy Muschietti took with his remake of Stephen King’s IT, putting out a movie that only covered half of the story, without a green light for the second part. Fortunately, the Dune movie is a success, and managed a decent post-pandemic return at the box office, becoming the tenth highest grossing movie of the year at the time, not mentioning HBO Max views.

In the first part we haven’t been able to see a lot from Zendaya, who played Chani, appearing mostlyin Paul’s visions and dreams in the movie. Now in anticipation of the conclusion to the story, Zendaya has revealed in a new interview that her character will get more screen time the second time around. Speaking to Deadline, the actress revealed that she was on set only for just five days, shooting the first part, but the second piece will develop Chani’s character more, giving her more time on screen.

“I want to grow with the characters I play, and with the people that I get to learn from. Anybody who has read the books knows there’s so much more to explore and deal with. What was cool for me having not been around for much of the first shoot was getting to see the movie from a completely fresh perspective, because I hadn’t seen the sets and the scenes for most of the movie. And watching it felt like just the beginning of this story.”

In the novel, Chani helps Paul in his fight for Arrakis, and becomes one of the protagonist’s closest allies. We shall see more of that in the second installation of the Dune franchise. Sources say Dune: Part 2 will also bring in some of the iconic characters that were missing from the story so far, including the books’ main villain: Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen. The director, Denis Villeneuve confirmed in a recent interview that the character will make an appearance in the second part.

Source: MovieWeb