Warner Bros. Discovery is certainly following through this year on its stated commitment to focusing more on its established franchises and prized pieces of IP. The applause for the studio’s first Batman spinoff TV series, The Penguin, hasn’t even fully died down yet, and already Warner Bros. is on the verge of launching another high-profile piece of franchise storytelling. Its latest HBO original, Dune: Prophecy, hopes to build on the expectation-defying success of director Denis Villeneuve‘s Dune films by further immersing viewers in the psychedelic powers, history, and politics of Dune author Frank Herbert’s futuristic universe.
On paper, that’s a no-brainer decision for a studio like Warner Bros., which has struggled to manage and make the most of its biggest franchises. But is Dune: Prophecy really what fans of Dune: Part One and Part Two want? The new series, which premieres on HBO and Max this Sunday, seems to fundamentally misunderstand what makes Villeneuve’s Dune films so special, beloved, and wide-reaching. The chances of Dune: Prophecy falling catastrophically flat with viewers seem, consequently, far greater than they’ve been for The Penguin or any other expensive piece of franchise-branded TV in recent memory.
Different mediums, different priorities
As reverential as they are of Herbert’s original novel, Denis Villeneuve’s Dune movies are not slavishly devoted to it. As a matter of fact, the films barrel their way through Dune‘s plot — adopting an urgent pace that is almost, particularly in Dune: Part Two, pummeling. The movies feature many of the same narrative elements as Dune: Prophecy, including witches who serve as human lie detectors and merciless feuds between rival houses, but Villeneuve’s films do not spend much time on the minutiae of their bifurcated story. They use Villeneuve and cinematographer Greig Fraser’s images as a shorthand to communicate the insidiousness of Dune‘s world — immersing viewers more in the emotions, mood, and grandeur of Herbert’s sci-fi future than the details of his subversive, hero’s journey story.
Dune: Prophecy is, conversely, a cold, exposition-filled deep dive into the history of its fictional world’s most secretly powerful group, the Bene Gesserit. It is all about the minutiae and the competing plans of its various ambitious politicians. Dune uses Paul Atreides’ understandable, deeply human desire for revenge to drive its story and connect viewers to his journey, and one could argue that Villeneuve’s two-part adaptation does that even more skillfully than Herbert’s original text. Dune: Prophecy‘s characters are, on the other hand, driven by a less relatable desire for control, so much so that the show’s story of competing forces vying for ultimate political power results in it having less in common with Villeneuve’s Dune movies and more in common with an earlier blockbuster HBO series, Game of Thrones.
That difference is not necessarily a negative thing. Dune: Prophecy isn’t as immediately entertaining as Thrones, nor does it seem as interested in winning over its more casual, less genre-obsessed viewers, but its surprising ruthlessness does give it a brutal, unpredictable edge that is its own potentially alluring selling point. Dune: Prophecy also uses many of the same technological and architectural designs as its modern sister films, which is to say that it borrows the visual language of Villeneuve’s blockbusters. That may make it easier for viewers to feel like they’ve fallen back into the world of Dune: Part One and Part Two — even as the series fails to bring the same level of muscular spectacle and visual refinement that Villeneuve and Fraser do in their acclaimed 2021 and 2024 films.
A smaller scope
Dune: Prophecy ultimately doesn’t look nearly as good as Dune: Part One or Part Two. Its cinematography is flatter and less impressive than what Fraser accomplishes in its big-screen counterparts, and the CGI spaceships, palaces, and environments featured throughout the TV series all look faker and artificially shinier than any you see in Villeneuve’s movies. This, combined with Dune: Prophecy‘s many exposition dumps and unsubtle lines of dialogue, make it feel surprisingly reminiscent of George Lucas’ Star Wars prequels. Like those movies and the original Star Wars trilogy, Dune: Prophecy shares the same vocabulary as Villeneuve’s Dune films, but the series speaks in an entirely different, more stilted cadence.
This may prove, in the end, to be Dune: Prophecy‘s biggest barrier to entry. The most alluring aspect of Villeneuve’s Dune movies is their practically unparalleled level of cinematic beauty. They are operatic, immaculately crafted blockbusters overflowing with moments and images that are designed to make your jaw drop. As ambitious as it may be, Dune: Prophecy never had any chance of matching the sheer visual power of those films without a craftsman like Villeneuve overseeing its production, and so it doesn’t. Without both that and the star power of actors like Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, and Austin Butler, you have to then ask: What reason is there for casual viewers to check out Dune: Prophecy?
A risky bet
The series hopes that it can hook viewers by exchanging the awe-inspiring spectacle of Villeneuve’s Dune movies with a more serialized, recognizable story of political gamesmanship. That may have been the only move Dune: Prophecy could have made, but it’s one that relies on viewers having an interest in its franchise’s world beyond what Villeneuve and his cast brought to their Dune films. That’s a gamble that may work, but it’s a much riskier bet than anyone at Warner Bros. or HBO seems to realize.
Dune: Prophecy premieres Sunday, November 17 on HBO and Max.
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