DUBAI: The trailer for director Denis Villeneuve’s new film, the sci-fi adventure “Dune,” was released on Wednesday, and both the UAE and Jordan have starring roles.
The trailer showed glimpses of Abu Dhabi’s desert and Jordan’s Wadi Rum.
“Dune,” which stars actors Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Jason Momoa, and Oscar Isaac, is an adaptation of American author Frank Herbert’s 1965 novel. The film, scheduled for release in December, tells the story of a royal who leads nomadic tribes in a battle to control the desert planet, Arrakis, and its only valuable product, a drug known as ‘Spice.’
“Dune” was made into a film in 1984 and a television series in 2000, but neither was particularly successful.
Earlier this year, Chalamet told Variety that shooting at dawn in Jordan “was really surreal.”
“There are these Goliath landscapes, which you may imagine existing on planets in our universe, but not on Earth,” he said.
Jordan and the UAE are becoming increasingly popular backdrops for Hollywood movies.
Wadi Rum, the famous desert destination in the south of Jordan, was a location for several major scenes in Disney’s live-action “Aladdin,” while American actor Ryan Reynold’s action movie “6 Underground” contained scenes shot in Abu Dhabi.
