Dune: Messiah gets update from composer Hans Zimmer: 'It's a very complicated one...'
Hans Zimmer hasn't "quite" started composing the score for 'Dune: Messiah' yet.
Hans Zimmer hasn’t started to write the music for ‘Dune: Messiah’ yet.
The 67-year-old composer wrote the soundtrack for director Denis Villeneuve’s first two sci-fi blockbusters, and while the filmmaker is finishing up the script for ‘Dune: Messiah’, Zimmer is still yet to put pen to paper for the upcoming flick’s score.
Talking to Collider, the musician said: “‘Dune: Part Two’ was written before Denis started shooting because we weren't greenlit for the longest time.
“Have I started writing [‘Messiah’]? No. Not quite yet.
“Oh, god, it's a very complicated one, but I love working with Denis, so I'm actually going to just focus on that, nothing else, and just really spend the time doing it.”
In January, Villeneuve admitted he was disappointed Zimmer’s score for ‘Dune: Part Two’ was disqualified from the Best Original Score honour at the 97th Academy Awards.
The ‘Sicario’ filmmaker told the website Slash Film: “I am absolutely against the decision of the Academy to exclude Hans, frankly, because I feel like his score is one of the best scores of the year.
“I don't use the word genius often, but Hans is one.”
The Academy - which rules that 80 per cent of a movie’s score had to be unique - disqualified ‘Dune: Part Two’ from the Best Original Score category due to its similarity to its predecessor’s material.
While ‘Dune: Part Two’ didn’t meet the Academy’s requirements, Villeneuve argued both blockbusters were “one movie that is cut in half”, and so naturally there would be a musical “continuity” between the first and second films.
Zimmer himself also said the reason for his disqualification from the Oscars was “such a stupid point”.
Appearing on the ‘Happy Sad Confused’ podcast, the composer explained: “It’s not really a sore point. It’s just a stupid point - how can it be a sore point?
“I got disqualified because I was using material from the first movie in the second movie, but it’s not a sequel. It’s a completion, both movies are one arc.
“So, was I supposed to go and take all of the character themes away and write them new themes and develop them? It’s a stupid rule.”
While Villeneuve continues to work on ‘Dune: Messiah’, it was recently reported the film is expected to enter principal photography in June - a year earlier than expected, as the movie marches toward its December 2026 release.
‘Dune: Messiah’, which will be based on author Frank Herbert’s 1969 book of the same name, is set 12 years after the events of ‘Dune: Part Two’, and follows Paul Atreides (Timothee Chalamet) after his ascension to the throne as Emperor of the Known Universe, only for the religious cult he created around himself to begin to spiral out of his control.
The movie will also see the return of Zendaya’s Chani, Florence Pugh’s Princess Irulan, Rebecca Ferguson’s Lady Jessica, Javier Bardem’s Stilgar and Josh Brolin’s Gurney Halleck.
