Abu Dhabi’s Liwa desert takes pride of place in the newly released trailer for Dune: Part Three, reaffirming the emirate’s role in shaping one of modern cinema’s most visually distinctive franchises.
“It’s a moment of immense pride to see Liwa showcased in the opening scenes of the first teaser trailer of Dune: Part Three,” Sameer Al Jaberi, head of Abu Dhabi Film Commission, tells The National.
“We look forward to working with Legendary Entertainment once again on the official release and promotion of the final chapter. This ‘first look’ refocuses our anticipation and excitement as we look ahead to December to see how this extraordinary trilogy reaches its finale.”
The opening moments of the teaser return to the vast, sculpted dunes that have come to define the fictional planet Arrakis on screen. While the footage expands the scale of director Denis Villeneuve’s world with fresh environments, it also reinforces a visual language rooted in the UAE’s landscapes.
That relationship has deepened with each instalment. The first Dune featured only a handful of shoot days in Abu Dhabi, with much of the desert work filmed in Jordan’s Wadi Rum.
By Dune: Part Two, the balance had shifted. While production still returned to Jordan, Liwa became the primary stand-in for Arrakis, with nearly a month spent filming in the UAE and a full-scale desert village constructed on location to support the shoot.
More than 1,000 people worked on the film during its UAE schedule, with a temporary settlement built from repurposed containers to house cast and crew. Roads were laid across the desert to allow equipment and personnel to move between more than 20 filming locations, highlighting the scale of the production – and the infrastructure required to support it.
“We were filming for 27 days in the desert,” Al Jaberi said previously. “Qasr Al Sarab did an amazing job housing almost all of the crew, but there were still more.”
For Dune: Part Three, that evolution appears complete. While studio work was carried out in Budapest, the film’s exterior desert sequences were shot exclusively in Abu Dhabi – cementing the emirate as the defining landscape of Arrakis on screen.
The continued return of the production, officials say, reflects not only the landscape itself, but also the wider ecosystem supporting it.
“It’s proof that they are amazed by the full ecosystem,” said Mohamed Dobay, acting director general of the Creative Media Authority. “From the collaborating companies in the private sector to the government services.”
For Villeneuve, however, the draw has always been visual. Liwa desert offers a scale and texture he felt was “unmatchable”, with dunes of shifting shapes and a distinctive atmospheric haze, he said after the first film.
That haze became central to the film’s identity. For the first film, rather than avoiding the harshest conditions, production deliberately filmed during the UAE’s summer months, when the light is more diffused.
“Summer in the UAE has greyer skies and a lot more haze. For Denis’s vision of Dune, it was absolutely perfect,” said Robbie McAree of Epic Films, which provided production services.
While much of Dune: Part Three was shot on 65mm and Imax, Villeneuve also turned to digital cameras for desert sequences when production returned to the UAE last October, drawn to the way they captured what he described as the “brutality” of the environment.
For the cast, the experience of filming in Liwa has been just as defining.
Jason Momoa, who reprises his role as Duncan Idaho, describes the desert shoot as one of the most memorable parts of his career.
“It’s amazing,” he told The National after wrapping production in the UAE. “You get to be in the desert, and it’s pretty special out there. It’s a big honour. We were getting up very early and very late. You get to see stuff most people don’t.”
Those early mornings and late evenings were essential to capturing the fleeting light Villeneuve was after.
“It’s stunning what it’s like out there at dusk and dawn,” Momoa said. “I got some good shots – my phone is pretty full.”
His connection to the UAE extends beyond the production itself. “I’ve been coming here for the last 15-plus years,” he said. “This place is Disneyland for big kids – but then you go out into the dunes and everything slows down.”
Dune: Part Three will be released in UAE cinemas on December 17
