Dune: Part Two" stirs global excitement amid Austin Butler's on‑set concerns

The past fortnight has seen an intense promotional campaign for the sequel to the global hit run its course. As a refresher, the 2021 film by Villeneuve amassed over £303 million. The cast is incessantly vying for attention, often through increasingly original and occasionally contentious media wall appearances.

Renewed global excitement preceding the premiere has revitalised the infamous reputation of the film from four decades ago, a David Lynch effort to adapt Frank Herbert's novel for the screen. The blockbuster's initial reviews have started to surface and have been very promising. The process of creating a masterpiece is fraught with challenges.

Having gained immense popularity through his lead role in Baz Luhrmann's "Elvis", Austin Butler is now part of Villeneuve's universe in the second part, playing the virtually unrecognisable Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen.

In an interview with "Entertainment Weekly", he stated that the conditions on set were far from ideal. The film was shot in Jordan and the United Arab Emirates, where the crew grappled with incredibly high temperatures.

"The temperature reached 43 degrees Celsius. I was wearing a bald cap and was positioned between two film sets, grey boxes filled with sand, each towering 61 metres high. I felt as though I was trapped in a microwave oven. Several people even fainted from the heat. And all this occurred during my first week", shared the lead actor from "Lords of the Skies".

The actor, aged 32, also touched on what he held most significant in portraying his character. Underneath an abundance of makeup, he mainly focused on the character's voice. "Since he grew up around Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, portrayed by Stellan Skarsgård, the Baron must have had a massive influence on Feyd-Rautha. I began to consider how he spoke and how it related to a figure you've viewed as the most powerful since childhood and the one you're striving to emulate", he explained.