Just two days after he was left empty-handed at the Academy Awards, Timothée Chalamet teased the new film that could win him his most coveted award: Dune: Part Three.
The trailer for the third installment in the Chalamet-starring space epic was released on Tuesday.
Alongside the three-time Oscar nominee, Dune: Part Three will feature returning actors Zendaya, Javier Bardem, and Jason Momoa, with new additions Robert Pattinson and Anya Taylor-Joy.
In the trailer, Chalamet, 30, sports a new shaved head as Paul Atreides, who leads an army into battle to defend his planet against otherworldly forces.
“I’m not afraid to die,” Chalamet says as he looks over his army, “but I must not die yet.”
Set 17 years after the second film, Dune: Part Three explores how Atreides deals with “the consequences of having too much power and him trying to figure out how to get out of this cycle of violence,” according to director Denis Villeneuve.
“And of course he’s an emperor who can see the future, so he’s kind of invincible,” the Oscar-nominated director, 58, confirmed at the trailer’s press conference on Tuesday.
Chalamet was not in attendance, but spoke to the audience through a pre-recorded video.
“In a production process that started in 2018 and over 150 production days across the three films at large, today, we are debuting the trailer to Dune: Part Three," Chalamet said in the video, reported by Deadline.
“Denis always says ‘Vive le cinéma!’ And with this third film, I think he has done just that. A true act of cinema,” he continued.
Two days earlier, Chalamet once again lost the Best Actor Oscar, this time to Michael B. Jordan for his dual roles in Sinners. The Marty Supreme star has earned two previous nominations for Call Me By Your Name and A Complete Unknown.
Dune: Part Three is the epic finale to a franchise that has earned more than $1.1 billion at the box office and won eight Oscars from 15 nominations, including two nominations for Best Picture.
Jason Momoa, whose character Duncan Idaho was killed off in the first film, will somehow return for the finale.
“I’m back. Yay! Finally!” Momoa said in a video at the press conference.
“Listen, I loved Dune: Part Two. It was amazing, but there was one thing missing, obviously, one key ingredient. So my question to you, Denis, is: Why did you kill me off of the first one? And why am I back now?" he added. “I love you because you miss me.”
Dune: Part Three will premiere in theaters on December 18, the same day as Avengers: Doomsday. Robert Downey Jr. has crowned the day “Dunesday”—referencing his prior same-day release of Oppenheimer and Barbie dubbed “Barbenheimer.”
