The desert sands of Arrakis once again proved fertile ground for Oscar success on Thursday, with director Denis Villeneuve’s sci-fi blockbuster “Dune: Part Two” scoring five nominations, including best picture along with production design, sound, cinematography and visual effects.
But the recognition for the conclusion of Villeneuve’s epic adaptation of the classic Frank Herbert novel fell significantly short of the first installment’s impressive showing. That film, which grossed more than $400 million worldwide, scored 10 nominations at the 2022 Oscars, including best picture, and swept the technical categories for its immersive and visually stunning world-building. Building on that success, “Dune: Part Two” earned $715 million worldwide, making it the fifth-highest-grossing film of the year.
While the academy has historically been lukewarm toward sci-fi, the first “Dune” became the sixth film ever to be nominated in all seven technical categories. (The others were “Titanic,” “Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World,” “Hugo,” “Mad Max: Fury Road” and “The Revenant.”) Despite earning perhaps even stronger reviews, the second installment failed to repeat that achievement.
The original “Dune” went on to win six Academy Awards, including for cinematography, production design and Hans Zimmer’s otherworldly original score. Villeneuve earned nods for co-writing and producing the first film but was notably snubbed in the directing category, an omission that rankled fans who felt his bold vision in tackling Herbert’s notoriously unfilmable novel deserved recognition.
Alas, he once again failed to make the cut in this year’s directing nominations, which went to a field of first-time nominees in the category, including Brady Corbet (“The Brutalist”), Jacques Audiard (“Emilia Pérez”), Sean Baker (“Anora”), Coralie Fargeat (“The Substance”) and James Mangold (“A Complete Unknown”). To date, Villeneuve has picked up only one directing nod, for the 2016 sci-fi drama “Arrival.”
The sequel’s score, also by Zimmer, was deemed ineligible for this year’s original score category, with the academy citing its extensive reuse of themes from the first film. In a recent interview with SlashFilm, Villeneuve registered his displeasure with the decision: “I am absolutely against the decision of the academy to exclude Hans, frankly, because I feel like his score is one of the best scores of the year. I don’t use the word genius often, but Hans is one.”
