Christopher Walken will play the Emperor in the "Dune" sequel

The cast of the sequel to the sci-fi movie "Dune" has had a significant addition. It is joined by Hollywood veteran Christopher Walken, who will play the role of Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV Corrino.
In Frank Herbert's literary original, it is he who sends the Atreides family to Arrakis to cause their imminent downfall. In the sequel, he and Baron Harkonnen terrorize the population and are forced to face a popular uprising. Jose Ferrer played this role in David Lynch's 1984 film adaptation.
It also became known that the Emperor's daughter, Princess Irulan, will be played by Florence Pugh, familiar to viewers from the Marvel comic book adaptation of Black Widow. It is Irulan who is to become the wife of Paul Atreides in the future and compete with his concubine Chani. It is not yet known whether director Denis Villeneuve will retain this storyline or prefer to soften it to suit modern feminism.
Filming on "Dune 2" is set to begin in mid-summer 2022, with the goal of premiering another year later. Recall that the first part did not perform impressively at the worldwide box office. Its box office receipts were only 400 million dollars with a production budget of 165 million dollars, that is, the project, most likely, did not pay off.