Dune: Part Two showcases Quebec filmmaking talent, boosts local cinema

Space worms and psychedelic spice return to the silver screen this weekend. Dune: Part Two, directed by Quebec's own Denis Villeneuve, premiered in Montreal on Wednesday and is being released in local theatres today.

A smash hit at the box office, the first instalment of the science fiction blockbuster was a boost to Quebec cinema during the pandemic, and the province is reaping the benefit of its homegrown talents.

Justine Smith, screen editor at Cult MTL, says the success of Villeneuve gives Quebecers who want to make it big in the film industry hope that they can reach the same heights. 

Villeneuve is "not just proud of being a Québécois but is actively engaged with the people here who work [in the film industry]," said Smith.

Unlike some other Canadian filmmakers who have made a splash on the international stage, Villeneuve has actively promoted his province and talked about returning home to make movies, Smith says.

"Despite the fact he's been working in Hollywood now for over 10 years, he's done so much post production here, he shot movies like Arrival here. He continues to invest in the [Quebec] industry in a very tangible way, but also in other ways as well," she said.

Smith says Villeneuve hasn't forgotten his roots, returning to Montreal on Wednesday to premiere Dune: Part Two, the same way he returned home to present Blade Runner 2049 at the Festival du nouveau cinéma in 2017.

Eli Glasner, CBC's senior entertainment journalist, describes the new sequel as "planetary" and "massive," a rarity for science fiction films in a era of "timid" Hollywood filmmaking. 

"It's a strange wild trip about battling empires and sandworms and psychedelic spice, and yet, he found a way to pull it off," he said. 

Glasner says that it was only after Villeneuve received Oscar attention for 2010's Incendies that the director made his way to the United States to direct films like Sicario.

"He wasn't one of these filmmakers that went south first. He really established his voice and also started gathering people he wanted to work with working in Montreal first," he said.

According to freelance film critic Rachel Ho, Quebec has consistently produced Canada's best films. Dune: Part Two, she says, showcases Villeneuve's chops in adapting the novel by Frank Herbert — long considered difficult to capture on the big screen. Villeneuve's accomplishment in meeting that challenge helps put Quebec cinema-making prowess on the Hollywood map.

"I think it's just another kind of jewel in Denis's crown that he's building for himself as potentially, arguably one of the greatest, if not the greatest director to come from the province, and I'd say to come from Canada as a whole," said Ho.

WATCH | Denis Villeneuve on coming home and Timothée Chalamet's growth:

Dune director Denis Villeneuve on premiering the film in his home province of Quebec

9 months ago

Duration 0:55

Director Denis Villeneuve attended the Dune: Part Two premiere in Montreal on Wednesday. The French-Canadian filmmaker was born in Quebec and started his career in Canada before directing Hollywood films such as Arrival, Prisoners and Dune.

Draw for Quebec's cinemas

The Dune sequel has Quebec's movie theatres excited too. In 2021, the first instalment in the series was by far the highest grossing film in the province, and cinemas are hoping the sequel will draw audiences to the box office en masse, especially after the pandemic.

"The buzz is really, really, really big for us and for all Quebec, I think," said Jean-François Lamarche, the program director for Cinéma Beaubien, Cinéma du Parc and Cinéma du Musée.

The timing of the film's release, he says, together with the lack of pandemic-era health restrictions that were in place when the first film was shown, could mean lots of ticket sales heading into the summer.

And business is good. He says the theatres are full, back to their pre-pandemic best. 

But films like Dune benefit cinemas in other ways beyond selling heaps of tickets. Lamarche says blockbusters bring in enough money to allow smaller cinemas like Cinéma du Parc to show art-house films — movies that are less advertised, made with lower budgets and typically challenge viewers more than wider-reaching, commercially successful flicks.

The film is also a "huge deal" for bigger movie theatres like Cinémas Guzzo, according to Vincenzo Guzzo, the cinema chain's president and CEO.

Guzzo says big movies like Dune: Part Two get viewers into movie theatres. He says people's habits may have changed, partly because of fewer theatrical releases, but they still go to the cinema — so long as the movie has a real story that audiences are excited about and the film is well-promoted.