The most important part of production designer Patrice Vermette’s work on Dune: Part Two was creating something fresh. The movie veteran brought an epic multi-planetary world to life for the Dune: Part One – and won an Oscar for his work – but director Denis Villeneuve specifically asked Vermette to treat viewers to an entirely new visual feast this time around. “He said, ‘We don’t want to repeat any sets, everything needs to be new. Nobody wants to go to the same places,’ and I one hundred percent agreed with that,” Vermette tells AD. The second instalment of the science fiction epic cracks open this futuristic universe further, displaying the various cultures and their aesthetics at greater depth. Vermette’s task was to reinvigorate those essential desert landscapes, create hundreds of thousands of square feet of new sets in tune with each distinct culture, and find new filming locations that would resonate with the story.
Read on to find out exactly where Dune: Part Two was filmed.
Altivole, Italy
When Vermette read the script for the sequel, he envisioned one very specific location for the gardens on the Imperium planet of Kaitain, Princess Irulan (Florence Pugh), and the Emperor’s (Christopher Walken) home. What immediately came to mind was the post-modernist Brion tomb in Altivole, Italy, a small northern town with a population hovering around 7,000. The cemetery there was designed by Carlo Scarpa, an architect whose work has been an inspiration to Vermette for over 30 years, and whose work influenced Vermette in his designs for Caladan and Arakeen in the first film.
When he shared photos of the cemetery with Villeneuve, the director was immediately interested in the prospect, but the managers of the property weren’t keen on welcoming film crews. It’s a private cemetery for the Brion family, and they’d never accepted a filming request before. It wasn’t until they realized that one of the family members was a fan of Dune: Part One that the request was approved. The Kaitain exteriors were shot in the gardens, and the interiors at the beginning of the film were shot inside of the cemetery’s chapel, though sets for later scenes on Kaitain were built on the Budapest soundstage.
Namibia
One very brief scene takes place in Namibia, in a vision of the future of the desert planet of Arrakis, newly replenished with water. “Denis always dreamed of having a place where the ocean meets the sand dunes,” Vermette says. “To my knowledge, you find that in Qatar and Namibia. For Qatar, you need to wait for high tides. In Namibia, it's like a wall. It's the desert and then a drop to the waves, and I think that's what the movie needed for that vision.”
Despite the scene being so short, it’s one of the most talked about because of Anya Taylor Joy’s appearance as Alia Atreiedes. Leading up to the movie, Joy’s appearance was completely secret – her name doesn’t even appear in the closing credits, as EW reported. “Very few of us went [to Namibia], and we signed with our blood the fact that Anya Taylor Joy was in the plane with us. Even my kids didn’t know,” Vermette says.
United Arab Emirates and Jordan
The crews returned to the United Arab Emirates and Jordan for desert scenes. As in the first film, locations in Jordan, like Al Siq, were chosen for scenes that featured canyons, while the United Arab Emirates was selected for the essential dune shots. Though they chose to return to those same countries, in keeping with their mandate to bring something new to the movie, they tried out different locations in each place.
Beyond that, their approach to working in the deserts was dramatically different this time around. While filming Dune: Part One, only props were brought in, but for this film backlots were created in the middle of the desert, allowing for much grander interventions. Massive equipment, like the large harvester machine’s legs in one action scene with Paul (Timothée Chalamet) and Chani (Zendaya), were brought into the desert so they could achieve a look as realistic as possible and capture the movement of the sun. “It was like huge puppeteering,” Vermette says.
Budapest, Hungary
Like the first movie, Dune: Part Two’s sets were built on soundstages in Budapest, Hungary. The sets were split between Origo Studios – where other films with expansive sets, like Poor Things and Blade Runner 2049, have been filmed – and Hungexpo, an exhibition space with a 103,000 square foot room. The film required a massive amount of space, with at least 40% more square footage of sets compared to the first movie, to capture many more distinct locations across the planets.
Built at Hungexpo, Geidi Prime is particularly memorable, with its menacing monochromatic design and bulbous shapes. In creating that planet’s distinct look, Vermette was inspired by the way light reflected off of plastic molded septic tanks and spiders. Whether on the soundstage or in the sand, an attention to detail keeps Dune: Part Two mesmerising from end to end.
