Dune Director Denis Villeneuve ‘Banned’ Cell Phones from His Sets Since the Devices Are ‘Like a Drug’

A Dune set is no place for cell phones or social media, according to director Denis Villeneuve. 

In a new and wide-ranging interview with the Los Angeles Times published Thursday, Dec. 26, the filmmaker, 57, explained why cast and crew on his projects are not encouraged to bring certain devices on set. 

“Cinema is an act of presence,” the Academy Award-nominated director said. “When a painter paints, he has to be absolutely focused on the color he’s putting on the canvas.”

“It’s the same with the dancer when he does a gesture. With a filmmaker, you have to do that with a crew, and everybody has to focus and be entirely in the present, listening to each other, being in relationship with each other,” he told the Los Angeles Times. 

Villeneuve added, “So cellphones are banned on my set too, since day one. It’s forbidden. When you say cut, you don’t want someone going to his phone to look at his Facebook account.”

Earlier in the interview, the director shared another reason he’s not so fond of technology at times.

“I feel that human beings are ruled by algorithms right now,” Villeneuve said. “We behave like AI circuits. The ways we see the world are narrow-minded binaries. We’re disconnecting from each other, and society is crumbling in some ways. It’s frightening.”

Villeneuve referred to being able to have constant access to others as “addictive.”

“It’s compulsive,” he said. “It’s like a drug. I’m very tempted to disconnect myself. It would be fresh air.”

The first installment of Villeneuve’s Dune film adaptation of Frank Hubert’s novel arrived in October 2021, with Timothée Chalamet (Paul Atreides), Zendaya (Chani) and Oscar Isaac (Duke Leto Atreides). The second part was released in March 2024.

A-listers Austin Butler (Feyd-Rautha), Florence Pugh (Princess Irulan) and Anya Taylor-Joy (Paul’s unborn sister Alia Atreides) joined for Dune: Part Two.

Though fans expressed frustrations in seeing Zendaya, 28, have only seven minutes of screentime in the first half, Chalamet, 29, couldn’t have asked for a better costar.

“She was like a breath of fresh air,” the A Complete Unknown star told PEOPLE in a joint October 2021 interview with the actress. “She had a great energy.”

In October, Villeneuve told Deadline he was in the “writing zone” already for a third film, which would adapt Hubert’s Dune: Messiah. However, he does see Dune and Dune: Part Two as “one entity” and a “finished” movie.

“But yes, like Herbert did with Dune: Messiah, I think it’ll be a great idea to do something completely different,” the filmmaker told the outlet. “The story takes place like 12 years after where we left the characters at the end of Part Two. Their journey, their story is different this time, and that’s why I always say that while it’s the same world it’s a new film with new circumstances.”

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Dune and Dune: Part Two are now streaming on Max.