Dune: Part Two is underway in active production and is set to begin filming this summer, with Denis Villeneuve returning as director. Meanwhile, the production of the film’s spin-off show, Dune: The Sisterhood, has also picked up the pace. The show, which will act as a prequel story for an element from Dune: Part One, has roped in an Emmy Award-winning director to helm the first two episodes.

According to Variety, Johan Renck has been confirmed as the series director for the first two episodes. Renck is famous for directing all five episodes of the miniseries Chernobyl, based on the Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster in 1986 that occurred in Soviet Ukraine. His work on the series earned him international fame and acclaim, getting him an Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for a Limited Series and a Directors Guild Award and Producers Guild Award. He was also roped into the helm of the pilot for The Last of Us series but later dropped out of the project.

Variety further reported a small detail on the plot of Dune: The Sisterhood. The show is confirmed to be a prequel, featuring a story of the origin of Bene Gesserit. As per the reports:

The show is set 10,000 years prior to the events of “Dune” and follows the Harkonnen Sisters as they combat forces that threaten the future of humankind, and establish the fabled sect known as the Bene Gesserit.

The Bene Gesserit played a prominent part in Dune: Part One featured as a powerful all-female sect that has had control and manipulation of the events and political shifts throughout the galaxy.

New Crew Leads to Villeneuve’s Exit from the Show

Johan Renck has replaced director Denis Villeneuve as the show’s front director. Writer Jon Spaihts, who penned the first film along with Villeneuve and Eric Roth, was also attached as the series showrunner but has also been replaced by Diane Ademu-John (The Haunting of Bly Manor) and Scott Z. Burns (The Report).

Both Denis Villeneuve and Jon Spaihts will return to work on the sequel, Dune: Part Two. The exit from the show will allow both of them to focus on the challenging sequel, which is reported to be bigger in terms of production scale and in Dune’s universe’s expansion. Dune and its sequels are inspired by Frank Herbert’s series of novels of the same name and are reported to have spun out a collective story featuring elements and characters directly drawn from the novels. While Part One covered only the first half of Herbert’s first book, the sequel will further continue the next half while also including elements from another book in the series.

Dune: Part One received critical acclaim upon its release. It was nominated for ten Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director (Villeneuve), and Best Adapted Screenplay (Spaihts), winning in six categories, the highest for a film in this year’s ceremony. The film was affected by the COVID-pandemic and was part of the film opted for Warner Bros.-HBO Max day-and-date released in 2021.

Dune: The Sisterhood is currently in active development and will be released as an HBO Max Original directly on the streaming platform.