For “Dune: Part Two,” Denis Villeneuve delved deep into the Arabian desert and spent almost a month shooting in Abu Dhabi’s Liwa Oasis, which provided a substantial portion of the landscape of the desert planet Arrakis, home to the monstrous sandworms.
Villeneuve praised the location and services provided by the Abu Dhabi Film Commission and UAE-based production services company Epic Films in a promotional behind-the-scenes video, to which Variety has been given exclusive access.
“‘Dune’ is about the relationship of humans with nature,” Villeneuve says in the promo that also features testimonials from Zendaya, Javier Bardem, Rebecca Ferguson and cinematographer Greig Fraser, among others.
“It was important for me to bring that nature to the screen,” adds the director, so that the audience will believe it “if they feel that there is something that feels real, that feels tactile.”
So after shooting for five days in the Abu Dhabi desert for “Dune’s” first installment, Villeneuve and the entire cast and crew returned for “Dune: Part Two” and spent 27 days amid Liwa’s towering rolling dunes, some of which are more than 600 feet tall, on the edge of Rub’ Al Khali, the world’s largest stretch of uninterrupted desert.
“We had a network of 18 miles of road leading us to different locations where we had tents, catering, construction cranes, telehandlers and everything,” says executive producer Tanya Lapointe.
“It was a huge endeavor, but it was spectacular,” adds Lapointe, who also served as second unit director on “Dune: Part Two.”
Legendary Pictures also benefited from the Abu Dhabi Film Commission’s (ADFC) generous 30% cashback rebate on production spend within the Emirate.
For onsite production pros, “the main challenge for ‘Dune: Part Two’ was the logistics,” line producer Robbie McAree, head of UAE-based Epic Films — who worked on both “Dune” films — told Variety in an interview on various aspects of the Abu Dhabi portion of the production.
How challenging was the “Dune: Part Two” shoot from your perspective?
The main challenge this time around were the logistics. Denis didn’t want to shoot in the same locations that we had on “Dune: Part One,” so we were going deeper into the desert, closer to the Saudi border — it’s such a big, empty border desert. We’d go finding new places because that was one of his main things: he didn’t want to use the same location.
How much local UAE crew and talents did you use?
We used close to 300 locally-based crew and contractors on the production, which is quite high compared to roughly 250 international crew who came over. So there were a lot of local professionals, which is great. And even in terms of background extras, I think there were 500, or close to 500, local extras whom we used throughout the 27 days. So it was big in terms of local requirements. And we were able to work very closely with not just the crew and talents, but also with other departments and vendors closely affiliated with the Abu Dhabi Film Commission and the Abu Dhabi municipality. We needed all these bits of assistance especially when we were essentially building these roads through the desert.
In terms of accommodations, did A-list talent such as Timothee Chalamet and Zendaya, actually sleep in the desert?
Where we were filming, obviously it’s close to the Qasr Al Sarab Hotel desert resort, which is great. That was our service point. It’s an amazing, amazing, hotel with great facilities. So, yes, they were all there. Of course, early on we realized that we were going to have a challenge in terms of the amount of beds. So I kind of pitched the idea to the producers — the international producers — of essentially building a camp. At first they were looking at me as if I had three heads. But it worked out, and it was a great solution.
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