july // 2026
From Budapest to the Liwa Desert: The filming locations of Dune: Part Three
Dune: Part Three
Dune: Part Three — the final chapter of Villeneuve's adaptation of Frank Herbert's trilogy, based on the 1969 novel Dune Messiah — was filmed between July 8 and November 2025, across two countries and one of the most remote desert landscapes on earth.
Timothée Chalamet returns as Paul Atreides, now emperor of the known universe but a man undone by the consequences of his own power. Zendaya returns as Chani. Florence Pugh as Princess Irulan. Javier Bardem as Stilgar. Rebecca Ferguson in one scene, written into the story when Villeneuve found a reason to warrant her return. Jason Momoa's son Nakoa-Wolf Momoa joins as Leto II. And Robert Pattinson, as the shape-shifting Tleilaxu Face Dancer Scytale, makes his entry into the franchise as its new villain.
Origo Film Studios, Budapest
Principal photography began on July 8, 2025, at Origo Film Studios in Budapest, Hungary — the same facility used for both Dune and Dune: Part Two. Origo is one of Central Europe's largest studio complexes, with twelve soundstages spread across a 100,000 square metre site. For the Dune films, director Denis Villeneuve has consistently used Budapest as the place where interior Arrakeen architecture, the Imperial Court, and the more controlled, political spaces of the story are built and filmed.
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Liwa Oasis, Abu Dhabi
In August 2025, the Abu Dhabi Film Commission confirmed that filming would take place in Liwa Oasis during the latter stages of the year. The Liwa Oasis sits at the northern edge of the Rub' al Khali — the Empty Quarter, the largest continuous sand desert in the world. The dunes here reach heights of over 300 metres. The light at dawn and dusk is not the orange-red of most desert environments but something more complex — shifting, golden, occasionally bleached near-white. Nothing about it looks constructed. Nothing about it looks like Earth, while being entirely of it.
The Liwa Desert and the wider Rub' al Khali have appeared in previous Dune films, alongside Wadi Rum in Jordan, which provided the red rock canyon landscapes used for several earlier Arrakeen sequences.
Filming wrapped in November 2025.
Dune: Part Three opens in cinemas on December 18, 2026.
SOURCE
Movie Insider // Backstage // Gold Derby
CREDITS
© Warner Bros - Legendary Pictures // Photo making of Dune Part Three
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