Robert Pattinson Vs. Timothée Chalamet In Dune 3 Is A Reminder To Watch The Netflix Movie They Faced Off In

Speculation is mounting that Robert Pattison is going to play a villainous nemesis to Timothée Chalamet’s Paul Atreides in Dune: Part Three, which is a reminder to watch a Netflix film featuring them both. The third Dune movie is currently being adapted from Frank Herbert’s book Dune Messiah by Denis Villeneuve, and there’s a standout role in the reckoning for Pattinson if he does want to face off against Chalamet. What’s more, it wouldn’t be the first time the two actors do battle as rival characters, as they previously met fought in the 2019 historical epic currently streaming on Netflix.

In one of Chalamet’s first major roles as a lead actor, he played King Henry V in David Michôd’s The King. The movie is a reinterpretation of the three classic William Shakespeare plays to feature Henry, or Prince Hal, as he’s known in Shakespeare’s Henry IV Parts I and II. Meanwhile, Robert Pattinson plays one of his best movie roles as The King’s impetuous villain, Louis, Dauphin of France. The tête-à-tête between Chalamet and Pattinson’s characters is set up beautifully for a final flourish on the battlefield, only for things to take an unexpected turn.

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Pattinson Is In Line To Play The Face Dancer Scytale

In Dune 3, on the other hand, we should expect Chalamet to have a genuine threat on his hands if Robert Pattinson does land the Dune role he’s expected to. Pattinson looks set to play Dune Messiah’s villain Scytale, a shapeshifting Face Dancer created by Bene Tleilax, whose sole aim is to overthrow Paul Atreides as Emperor and Messiah to the Fremen.

Scytale’s appearance as a new character in Dune 3 is inevitable, since he is a major antagonist central to the climactic moment of Dune Messiah’s plot. But it will be interesting to see how Villeneuve and his production team handle the morphing of Pattinson’s face – if he is in fact cast in as Dune 3’s main villain – in key scenes of the movie. Because Face Dancers are humanoids with the extra ability to change the configuration of their muscles, nerves and even bones to mimic any other human, we may see Pattinson’s appearance transform multiple times in the role of Scytale.

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Additionally, as a scheming machiavel who uses subterfuge to try and turn a situation in his favor, Scytale would require a nuanced, multi-layered approach from Pattinson. This kind of performance is precisely what Pattinson was tasked with when he played Louis, Duke of Guyenne in The King, opposite Timothée Chalamet’s King Henry V.

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The Two Actors Construct Their Rivalry In The Movie With Aplomb

David Michôd’s The King is far the best movie based on Shakespeare’s plays, but it’s hard to knock how the director goes about fulfilling his enormous ambitions for the project. Still, the movie requires compelling and entertaining performances at its heart, which it gets primarily from Robert Pattinson and Timothée Chalamet in their portrayal of the rivalry between Louis, the Dauphin of France and the English King Henry.

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Pattinson is brilliant as the supercilious Dauphin trying his best to wind his rival up. To his credit, Chalamet plays the young king with restraint, striking the right balance between youthful exuberance and a keen sense for authority beyond his years. The withering, slightly sarcastic look an exhausted Henry gives the Dauphin when his rival belatedly agrees to a swordfight on the battlefield is a glimpse at the kind of sparks which could fly if Chalamet and Pattinson face off as Paul Atreides and Scytale in Dune 3.

Dune 3 Can Deliver An Even Better Pattinson vs. Chalamet Face-Off

Scytale Is A Stronger, More Meaningful Villain Than The King’s Dauphin

It must be said, however, that Robert Pattinson’s character in The King is so absurdly pompous that it’s hard to take him that seriously, particularly during his climactic face-off with King Henry. Pattinson clearly enjoyed playing the role, as we see him ham up the Dauphin’s pomposity to the maximum onscreen, but his potential Dune role would have more depth to it. Scytale is a more serious and capable villain, who is, at the same time, a character of many faces, both literally and figuratively. He also knows how to make hand-to-hand combat difficult for Paul Atreides.

Casting Robert Pattinson in a Dune 3 face-off against Timothée Chalamet would have far more gravitas to it than the wonderfully entertaining rivalry they depict in The King. As well as having more depth to it, the conflict between Paul Atreides and Scytale involves the highest possible stakes in the Dune universe.

Atreides isn’t just a young ruler, but a hugely powerful intergalactic emperor worshipped as a Messiah by the Fremen of Arrakis. If Scytale manages to dethrone him in Dune: Part Three, as he seems more capable of doing than The King’s Dauphin does in Henry V’s case, the known universe will dramatically change course. Everything will be on the line in this epic face-off, and there’s surely no one better to be standing opposite Chalamet as the nemesis of Atreides than Robert Pattinson.

Dune: Part Three

Release Date

December 18, 2026

Writers

Jon Spaihts

Producers

John Harrison, Mary Parent, Richard P. Rubinstein, Thomas Tull, Tanya Lapointe