MOVIE NEWS – Johan Renck will direct the first two episodes of the Dune prequel series, titled Dune: The Sisterhood.

The second part of Dune is currently in active production and is scheduled to start shooting this summer, with Denis Villeneuve returning to the director’s chair. Meanwhile, filming on the film’s spin-off series, Dune: The Sisterhood has also accelerated. The series, which will act as a prequel to Dune: An Emmy-winning director, has been hired to direct the first two episodes of the first instalment.

According to Variety, Johan Renck has been confirmed as the series director for the first two episodes. Renck is known for directing all five episodes of the miniseries Chernobyl, based on the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster in Soviet Ukraine. His work on the series has brought him international fame and acclaim. He has won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for the limited series and awards from the Directors Guild and Producers Guild. He was also involved in directing the pilot for The Last of Us but later dropped out of the project.

Variety also reported a sneak peek at the plot of Dune: The Sisterhood. It has been confirmed that the series will be a prequel film featuring the Bene Gesserit origin story. According to reports:

Set 10,000 years before the events of Dune, the series follows the Harkonnen sisters as they battle forces that threaten the future of humanity and found the legendary sect known as the Bene Gesserit.

The Bene Gesserit played a prominent role in the first Dune as a powerful, all-female sect that controlled and manipulated events and political change across the galaxy.

Johan Renck replaced director Denis Villeneuve as the series’ first director. Writer Jon Spaihts, who co-wrote the first film with Villeneuve and Eric Roth, also served as showrunner for the series but was replaced by Diane Ademu-John (The Haunting of Bly Manor) and Scott Z. Burns (The Report).

Denis Villeneuve and Jon Spaihts are also returning to work on the Dune sequel. The departure from the series will allow both to focus on the challenging sequel, which will reportedly be more extensive in terms of production scale and expansion of the Dune universe. The Dune and its sequels are adaptations of Frank Herbert’s novel series of the same name. They will reportedly spin-off a collaborative story that includes elements and characters drawn directly from the novels. While the first instalment only covered the first half of Herbert’s first book, the sequel continues the next half while also incorporating elements from another book in the series.

When the first part of The Dune was released, it received critical acclaim, and overall we liked it. It was nominated for ten Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director (Villeneuve) and Best Adapted Screenplay (Spaihts), and won six categories, the most of any film at this year’s ceremony. The film has been included in the COVID-pandemic and is also part of the HBO Max Feature Films, currently available in 4K, and has been in Hungary for some time.

Production is currently active on Dune: The Sisterhood, which will, of course, also be released on the HBO Max streaming platform.

Source: Collider