Zendaya Is Everywhere Right Now — So Here's What Actually Happened Behind The Scenes Of Dune: Part Two

Timothée Chalamet Spent THREE MONTHS Filming A Scene That Lasts Three Minutes — And He'd Do It Again

The iconic sandworm-riding sequence wasn't some quick green-screen trick. Chalamet revealed his stunt team built an entire separate "Worm Unit" just for it, and what ends up as roughly three minutes on screen took a jaw-dropping three months to shoot with practical rigs shaking violently under him.

Denis Villeneuve Carved 18 Miles Of Road Into The Desert — Then Just... Let It Disappear

This wasn't a soundstage desert. The crew spent 27 days shooting deep in Abu Dhabi's Liwa Oasis, among dunes over 600 feet tall, plus weeks in Jordan's Wadi Rum, and Villeneuve had his team build eco-friendly roads through the sand just to move equipment. He later admitted those roads were "probably already gone" by the time the movie came out.

Zendaya Was Only On Set For FIVE DAYS On The First Dune — Then Part Two Changed Everything

Remember being confused that Zendaya barely appeared in the 2021 Dune despite the marketing? That's because she really was only there about a week, clocking roughly seven minutes of screen time in a two-and-a-half-hour movie. Villeneuve has said he deliberately gave Chani "more substance and presence" in the sequel, turning her from a dream-sequence vision into a fully realized Fremen fighter.

Timothée Chalamet Trained So Hard For Part Two That His Own Costar Barely Recognized Him

Dave Bautista said he was floored watching Chalamet transform between films, crediting a serious training and eating regimen for turning him from "a boy" into someone who could believably command a room — and ride a sandworm. Chalamet and Austin Butler also trained separately with a Kali instructor for months before ever meeting on set for their climactic knife fight.

Dune: Part Two's Wildest Effect Wasn't A Sandworm — It Was Banning Green Screen Entirely

Production designer Patrice Vermette said Villeneuve's brief was to give actors an immersive environment with zero green screen, so even interior sets in Budapest were built with 20 feet of real set pieces and actual sand covering the ground. It came at a cost too — Austin Butler said the soundstages hit 110 degrees and turned into "a microwave," with people passing out from heat stroke during his very first week.