How ‘Dune’ and ‘Wicked’ could upend Oscar history
Filmmakers faced unique challenges in how to make individual parts of a singular vision work on their own. And now both are competing for Best Picture.
Something unusual’s going on in this year’s list of Academy Award Best Picture nominees. Namely that one of the films aired its first installment in theaters mid-2021 pandemic… and another hasn’t even released its second half yet. Those films? Dune: Part 2 and Wicked. Should either overcome long odds — Wicked is tied for fifth in the Gold Derby ranking, while Dune is ninth in the 10-film race — it would be the first time that one half of a two-parter took home the biggest prize of the film season.
“History could be made,” chuckles Tanya Lapointe, one of the producers from Denis Villeneuve‘s Dune 2 (she also worked on the first Dune, which was also directed by Villeneuve). “It’s a fascinating year.”
More from GoldDerby
To put it mildly. Audiences and voters have been used to literal sequels getting onto the nomination lists; twice such films have won: The Godfather Part II in 1975 and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King in 2004. But Dune/Dune: Part 2 and Wicked/Wicked: For Good (due out later this year), are not considered sequels or part of franchises by their filmmakers. They are simultaneously planned out as individual releases — but of one complete story unit. That led to some creativity in the entire production, from screenwriting to marketing.
“We wanted to open the [musical] up to everyone who would watch the first movie and think, ‘This is it, this is the whole story,'” says Dana Fox, who cowrote Wicked and the forthcoming Wicked: For Good with Winnie Holzman (author L. Frank Baum also gets a screenwriting credit). “One can’t tee up the other movie; they both have to be successful moviegoing experiences on their own — so that was a real challenge.”
Knowing that Wicked would always premiere as two separate films in two separate years, filmmakers shot both films simultaneously. But in the case of Dune (which was nominated for Best Picture in 2024) the second part was not promised until after the first had wrapped.
“Three days after the Oscars ceremony, we were on a plane and back on track,” says Lapointe, who notes Part 2 also ran into issues thanks to the writers’ strikes, which pushed the film into a less-than-optimum March release. But the plan screenwriters Jon Spaihts and Villeneuve had for their two films was not dissimilar to Wicked: both parts had to be standalone experiences. That meant finessing the writing.
“There was never a point where the screenwriting for the first film held anything back, to say, ‘No, we have to keep the good stuff for Part 2,'” says Lapointe. For the filmmakers, Part 1 was more focused on a son coming of age and his relationship with his parents, as he was thrust into a new geopolitical leadership position on a new planet. The second part was about embracing the prophecy that grew around him. Two films, two ideas, similar characters.
Yet both films laid groundwork in the first films that could be revisited in plots and emotional arcs in the second. According to Lapointe, screenwriter Spaihts “said it was best that they left some unbuilt bridges that they could then build in Part 2.”
In the case of Wicked, Fox says they wrote their two scripts simultaneously, so that they “could seed something from Part 2 in Part 1.” There are also musical reprises that will turn up in For Good that were first heard in the first film. “It’s going to take a year before that reprise shows up again, and we’re hoping people are going to feel what we want them to feel to reflect back to the first movie.”
Less well examined amid all the trivia and definitions over what makes a sequel and what makes a standalone Part 2 is just why these films are becoming not only more popular now — but award-worthy. The final films in the Harry Potter and Hunger Games series ended up being broken into two parts, but were never portrayed as two standalone films. But not so many years after sequels, prequels, reboots and reimaginations all but took over theaters, two-parters are up for contention as Best Picture.
TV’s evolution can take some credit (or blame), as series and miniseries can feel like extended movies, with budgets to support the claim. So are films taking their cues from the way the small screen has opened up?
“TV has retrained viewers to want a deep character story that goes on for a really long time,” muses Fox. “That’s not something you were able to do in movies before — go deep into the characters the way they do in television.”
Perhaps then as TV becomes more cinematic, cinema is becoming more TV-like. For now, the surprise of having two “standalone” films that nonetheless have multiple parts to them — not sequels! — is the latest curiosity in the awards season race. And the filmmakers can only hope that whether they’ve just wrapped up their story, or still have more to go, voters will recognize the individual films on their own merits.
“We don’t make movies for the awards,” says Lapointe. “It all lands on us as it comes. So I can’t say any of this was a ‘strategy.’ We just do the work and ultimately try to bring audiences into this world. We just want as many people to see the films as possible.”
Best of GoldDerby
Sign up for Gold Derby's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Solve the daily Crossword
