Denis Villeneuve & Timothée Chalamet's Dune Movies Get Official Reaction From Original Paul Atreides

Published Oct 4, 2026, 3:36 PM EDT

Rianna is the Movie News Editor for ScreenRant. After earning her BA in Film Studies, she began her career as an entertainment writer, contributing to several publications before joining ScreenRant. Her dissertation on the impact of streaming on traditional cinema sharpened her focus on the ever-evolving world of film and media. With 10 years in the industry, Rianna continues to cover the stories she loves while also advocating for awareness and representation of rare disabilities, such as Moebius Syndrome, which she lives with.

Timothée Chalamet's portrayal of Paul Atreides gets an official verdict from Dune alum.

The Dune franchise began with Frank Herbert's revolutionary sci-fi novel Dune, published in 1965. The novel grew from a cult classic into one of the best-selling sci-fi books of all time and a major multi-billion-dollar juggernaut. The author expanded the novel with five core sequels, and it was later adapted by David Lynch in 1984, which unfortunately failed to launch. After some TV adaptations from Syfy, legendary filmmaker Denis Villeneuve took over and reinvigorated the epic empire.

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Chalamet is currently portraying the role of Paul Atreides in Villeneuve's adaptation of Dune, with the third and final installment titled Dune: Part Three arriving in theaters on December 18. However, there was a Paul Atreides before Chalamet and was the star of Lynch's adaptation: Kyle MacLachlan. In an interview with GQ, MacLachlan finally addresses the new Dune movie series and his thoughts on Chalamet's portrayal of the complex character. When asked if he can see himself when watching the new Dune, the actor stated:

"I don’t, really, but when I watched the movies, I was very nostalgic. I felt like I was revisiting something. The scene where he puts his hand in the pain box, it was almost word for word, because it’s from the book. I’m like, “Oh God, I remember that day and I remember working with Siân Phillips and I remember the costume and then how the camera moved and the choices I made walking in.”

I mean, everything came kind of flooding back in a very unexpected way. And then I was like, “Oh, that would have been a great scene. I wish we’d done that scene in the tent. That would have been really good.” You know what I mean? Or you see something and you’re like, “Oh, I love that scene. That would have been fun to shoot.” But I didn’t really feel like I was watching the movie. I was always kind of in the movie too, a little bit. It was a weird sensation.

And it was really fun to see some of the scale of things. When you see the worms in a desert, and I know it’s a lot of CGI and stuff, but I was like, “Wow.” And like, “God, they really move fast, don’t they?” We had a slice of a worm on the side of a boxcar on a railroad kind of chugging along that I was running after like this with the hook. It was very lo-fi in some odd way. But it was my Dune, and it was full of those wonderful memories."

Villeneuve's Dune adaptation is reaching new heights with incredible success at the box office and an expected major battle for the top spot against Marvel's upcoming movie Avengers: Doomsday. However, Lynch's adaptation with MacLachlan tried to be an epic retelling and was cut short, leading to disagreements, poor box office performance, and a devastating critical reception. The 1984 movie was reportedly four hours in runtime before producers cut it to 137 minutes, which caused the filmmaker to disavow the version released.

When asked about what Lynch may have said about the new Dune movies, MacLachlan stated, "No. No, he didn’t want to see them. He was not interested. I don’t know if he ever saw any of the other things that I did. And part of that I think is, and particularly with Twin Peaks, the character of Cooper, I was Cooper for David. I mean, I was “Kale,” which he used to call me, but I was Cooper. So whenever he’d see me, I’d be Kale sometimes, but sometimes he would see me when I’d go visit and say, “Coop, how you doing?”"

Lynch's Dune unfortunately only grossed $30 million domestically and reportedly had the budget costs of $45 million to reach. Critics gave an underwhelming rating of 36% on Rotten Tomatoes, with some saying that, "As with many things lousy, this acquired a cult following over the years, but it’s hardly worthy," and "A commendable attempt by director David Lynch. He has managed in the main to successfully condense Herbert's saga."

Chalamet will return as Paul Atreides one final time in Dune: Part Three, set to be released on December 18.