MOVIE NEWS – Robert Pattinson is officially aboard Dune: Part 3, taking on a thorny antagonist as Denis Villeneuve wraps his sweeping saga. In the shadows around Arrakis, a new conspiracy stirs against the empire of a messianic ruler.

After months of rumor mills and quiet chatter, Pattinson confirmed he’ll appear in the capstone to Villeneuve’s take on Frank Herbert. Fans of the books will clock the challenge immediately: he’s playing Scytale.

While promoting Die My Love with Jennifer Lawrence, he told IndieWire about filming under brutal desert heat. “On Dune, it was so hot I stopped second-guessing anything,” he joked. “Oddly soothing… like the brain just switched off.”

Villeneuve balanced brains and bombast in 2021’s Dune and 2024’s Dune: Part Two. The third film adapts 1969’s Dune Messiah and is slated for December 18, 2026, aiming to close a modern sci-fi landmark with a decisive final chapter.

Scytale – the deceiver who tests the divine

Scytale’s name in Herbert’s lore signals dread and allure. He’s a Face Dancer of the secretive Bene Tleilax, masters of gene-craft and biotech, able to alter body and voice at will and pass as anyone with eerie precision.

Even among his order, he’s singular. Born Shuurfak Rai Shedler on Tleilax, he combines sharp intellect, charisma, and unmatched morphing skill. His part in the plot against Paul Muad’Dib Atreides – played by Timothée Chalamet – shows how far the Tleilaxu will go to tug at fate itself.

In Dune Messiah, Scytale helps braid a cabal of Bene Gesserit, Spacing Guild, and Tleilaxu to unseat the emperor. He’s a manipulator and a tragic schemer who leans on forbidden science and engineered life to rewrite history. Central to his designs are gholas – clones capable of recovering memories from prior lives – pushing the edges of identity across the saga.

Why Pattinson fits the mask

From The Lighthouse to The Batman, Pattinson thrives on roles that braid fragility and menace – the exact recipe Scytale demands. He isn’t a cartoon villain but a living emblem of change, physically and morally, weaponizing disguise and survival.

Since Twilight, he’s toggled between indies and tentpoles like Tenet and The King. He’s said working with Villeneuve reshaped his approach to character work, hinting this turn could mark another pivot point.

Closing a trilogy that already reshaped sci-fi

With Dune: Part Three, Villeneuve looks to complete one of the most daring and faithful realizations of Herbert’s vision. After the acclaim and box office of the first two films – Part Two topping 715 million dollars worldwide – the finale teases high-stakes politics and thorny moral choices.

Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson, Javier Bardem, Florence Pugh, and Léa Seydoux return, but Pattinson’s Scytale could bend the story into darker territory about power, faith, and decay. Dune has always been about transformation – of people, empires, and ideas. Casting a master of reinvention as the master of change feels like the right emblem for the endgame. The film arrives December 18, 2026.

Source: 3djuegos