Even Zendaya Wants to Know If There Will Be a “Dune: Part Three”: ‘I Definitely Am Curious’ (Exclusive)

The cast of ‘Dune: Part Two’ doesn’t know for sure if more installments of Denis Villeneuve’s hit sci-fi movies are to come

When Dune stars Zendaya, Timothée Chalamet and Austin Butler are asked about further sequels to Part Two, they can only shrug.

But “just as a fan watching,” answers Zendaya, 27, “I definitely am curious.”

The actress, who plays Fremen warrior Chani in both writer-director Denis Villeneuve’s 2021 hit Dune and its new sequel (in theaters Friday), tells PEOPLE that she would “absolutely” love to see a Part Three greenlit.

“I loved seeing Florence in this,” she says of costar Florence Pugh, who joins the cast in Part Two as daughter to Christopher Walken’s Emperor Shaddam IV. “I'm very curious to learn more about Princess Irulan and the dynamic that she shares with Paul and Chani.”

She adds excitedly that watching Pugh and Chalamet in the new film, she thought, “Ooh, what's going on there? I would love to see more of that. But it's up to Denis and the powers that be.”

Related: See Inside a New 'Dune' Book Featuring Poetry by Star Josh Brolin (Exclusive)

Based on Frank Herbert’s long-beloved sci-fi series, Villeneuve’s two Dune movies cover the plot of the original 1965 novel. Chalamet plays Paul Atreides, who journeys through space to the desert planet Arrakis, where treachery — and giant, toothy sandworms — await. 

Not long after Dune premiered in theaters and on HBO Max in 2021, production company Legendary Entertainment and distributor Warner Bros. announced that a sequel had been greenlit thanks to its box office success. At the subsequent Academy Awards, the movie also won six Oscar statuettes.

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Of a potential follow-up to the climactic events of Part Two, Villeneuve told Empire in August that “there are words on paper.”

“If I succeed in making a trilogy, that would be the dream,” added the French-Canadian filmmaker, 56, at the time. Herbert’s 1969 sequel novel Dune Messiah, “written in reaction to the fact that people perceived Paul… as a hero,” would be its source material.

After Anya Taylor-Joy made a surprise appearance at the Dune: Part Two premiere in London on Feb. 15, fans speculated further about what role she might play in potential upcoming installments.

“I don't know anything,” admits Zendaya to PEOPLE when asked about Taylor-Joy. “I do know that I started [reading] Messiah and I was like, ‘Hoo! Alright, this is going to be a lot to take in.’”

Villeneuve, she adds, “is able to visualize a world that is so rich and just cool. When I listened to the book many times — you try to picture things in your head, ‘I wonder what that device looks like or I wonder what that thing looks like.’ And then seeing what they've created and what they found I think is really, really impressive.”

Related: Tom Holland Supports Girlfriend Zendaya's New Movie Challengers: 'You Ain't Ready for This One!'

Remembering how she was cast in the 2021 movie, Zendaya says she “tried to do a crash course” in all things Dune, including watching David Lynch’s 1984 adaptation. 

“I heard that Denis was making it and I heard that there might be something that I could do in it. And I was like, ‘Hi, can I audition?’ This was quite a while ago, before Euphoria came out or anything. So I just remember kind of running through every Dune thing I could possibly learn from.”

While the Dune movies she and Chalamet star in are distinct, she continues, “the beauty of the book too and why people love it so much is they have their own visions of it. When you read it, you see something different in your head.”

Dune: Part Two, which was originally slated for a November 2023 release but was delayed amid Hollywood’s strikes last year, follows “the mythic journey of Paul Atreides as he unites with Chani and the Fremen while on a warpath of revenge against the conspirators who destroyed his family,” per its official synopsis.

"Facing a choice between the love of his life and the fate of the known universe, he endeavors to prevent a terrible future only he can foresee.”

Joining Zendaya and Chalamet in the new movie are Butler, Pugh, Walken and Léa Seydoux, plus returning cast members Rebecca Ferguson, Josh Brolin, Dave Bautista, Stellan Skarsgård, Charlotte Rampling and Javier Bardem. Dune: Part Two is in theaters Friday.

Read more about Chalamet, Zendaya and Butler in this week's issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands now.

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