'Dune Part Three's Best Box Office Comp Might Just Be 'Sonic The Hedgehog 3'

Artistically speaking, let’s hope that Denis Villeneuve’s epic ranks, among gratuitous threequels to excellent rise-and-fall dualogies, closer to 'The Godfather Part III' than 'The Rise of Skywalker'

Along with the expected size, scope and scale thus far delivered in Denis Vilaneuve’s first two entries, especially the middle chapter in 2024, the second trailer for Dune Part Three offers at least a few hints of some of the… odder twists and turns found in Dune: Messiah and (especially) the later Frank Herbert novels. Beyond that, the last movie already offered its big twist, namely that Paul Attredies would be less Harry Potter and more Anakin Skywalker. That said, the closest box office comp might be Paramount’s long-suffering but unfailingly successful Sonic the Hedgehog franchise. Artistically, the key challenge, without caring about source fidelity, is to what extent the finale will have the tyrannical “Boy who Genocided” brought low enough that he won’t still be seen as a Scarface/Tyler Durden-style problematic fave.