When he’s not too busy trading friendly jabs with comedian John Mulaney, Call Me By Your Name actor Timothée Chalamet is already preparing for an inevitable second Oscar nomination with the drug addiction drama Beautiful Boy, which also stars Steve Carell. Yet catering to the whims of Academy voters is not the only thing the 22-year-old performer has in mind for his budding career. Hence Blade Runner 2049 director Denis Villenueve’s upcoming Dune reboot for Legendary Pictures, which Deadline reports Chalamet is currently in “final talks” to star in.
Legendary Pictures acquired the rights to author Frank Herbert’s acclaimed science fiction series back in 2016, thereby initiating a race to bring the iconic tale back to the big screen. (David Lynch directed the cult classic 1984 film starring Kyle MacLachlan, and was followed by Syfy’s three-part miniseries Frank Herbert’s Dune in 2000.) Villenueve’s name was subsequently attached to the studio’s reboot plans, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button writer Eric Roth was thrown into the mix a few months later. Should Chalamet’s talks work out, he’ll take the lead role previously played by MacLachlan, Paul Atreides:
[The story] is set in the far future involving worlds beyond Earth, ruled over by competing feudal families who control access to a drug called Melange. Known popularly as “spice,” the drug gives its users heightened consciousness and an extended lifespan at the cost of crippling addiction and fatal withdrawal. Spice, use of which makes interstellar travel possible, is found only on the desert planet of Arrakis — aka “Dune” — and as such is the most valuable commodity in the galaxy.
So it looks like moviegoers will be seeing a blue-eyed Chalamet in the near future, seeing as how spice consumption results in the noticeable discoloration.
(Via Deadline)