Over the past decade, Denis Villeneuve has proven himself a science-fiction powerhouse. With Arrival, he made one of the most emotional and soulful sci-fi films of recent memory, and then he followed it up with Blade Runner 2049 – a visually-stunning, thought-provoking follow-up to one of the all-time-greats, that fully deserves to stand alongside Ridley Scott’s original. Now he’s tackling one of the boldest, barmiest, densest sci-fi tomes of all time – one that weaves an expansive mythology of desert planets, feuding families, and gigantic marauding sandworms. Get ready for Dune.
The new issue of Empire is a major world-exclusive, going on set of Villeneuve’s ambitious adaptation, getting acquainted with the Atreides, and coming face-to-face with the Fremen. There are two Dune covers to collect – first up is House Atreides, one of the great noble houses of Landsraad. Up front is Timothée Chalamet’s young protagonist Paul Atreides, with Oscar Isaac as his father Duke Leto, Rebecca Ferguson as the Bene Gesserit witch Lady Jessica, and Josh Brolin’s master-at-arms Gurney Halleck.
On the second cover, you’ll find the indigenous Fremen people of the planet Arrakis – including Javier Bardem’s Stilgar, leader of one of the Fremen tribes, and Zendaya’s tribe member Chani. Then there’s Sharon Duncan-Brewster as Liet-Kynes (gender-swapped from the original novel) who has become embedded among the Fremen, and Jason Momoa’s Duncan Idaho – who isn’t a Fremen, but whose destiny may ultimately lie with them.
Pre-order the House Atreides cover online here, and pre-order the [Fremen cover online here](https://www.greatmagazines.co.uk/empire-october-2020-cover-2?utm_source= dynamic&utm_medium=bws&utm_content=dunescover2&utm_campaign=empire_singles). Alternatively, pre-order the bundle of both covers here with an extra discount.
This month’s subscriber cover, created exclusively for Empire by Jane Yun and Enrique Torres at Bond, in collaboration with the filmmakers behind Dune, is a terrifying glimpse at the colossal sandworms of Arrakis – with one threatening to swallow an oblivious Paul Atreides whole.
Stay tuned for more Dune exclusives coming soon, and find the issue on newsstands from Thursday 3 September.