Stars shine in Abu Dhabi during ‘Dune Part 2’ premiere
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NewsTranscript
00:00All right, you all ready?
00:01One, two, three.
00:04Good evening.
00:15This is Manjusha Radhakrishnan from Gulf News.
00:17I'm here for the Middle Eastern premiere of Dune Part 2.
00:21And right now on the red carpet, we
00:22had director Denny Villeneuve and, of course,
00:25stars Josh Brolin and Dave Bautista.
00:28They were amazing.
00:29As they walked down the red carpet,
00:31they were talking about all the experiences
00:33that they had in Abu Dhabi.
00:34In fact, we had the director telling us,
00:37filming is like being in a submarine.
00:41He has no clue what happens to it.
00:42But we can vouch that Dune was a huge success
00:45because it was partly filmed in Abu Dhabi.
00:48So life has indeed come full circle for the cast
00:51and crew of Dune Part 2.
00:52Nearly 30 days were spent in Abu Dhabi.
00:55They were shooting significant portions of the movie
00:58in the UAE capital.
01:00So stay tuned for all the details.
01:02Hi, Josh.
01:03How are you doing?
01:03I'm good.
01:04I'm good.
01:04Did you expect Dune to be such a big phenomenon?
01:07It's a cultural touchstone now.
01:08No, I didn't.
01:10And you know, we sit here and you do the work.
01:12And you watch Denny going through two years of editing
01:14and Hans with his music and Greg.
01:18And then you watch people watch the movie.
01:20And it's very special.
01:21I've been on the opposite end, too, where the movie comes
01:24and they go, meh, it's good.
01:25No, people are really responding viscerally to this.
01:29I think it's great.
01:30Amazing.
01:30You've done a fantastic job.
01:33How do you stay in the zone of Dune,
01:34like filming under such physical struggles?
01:38How are you not disenchanted by it?
01:40Oh, OK.
01:41I understand.
01:41Yes.
01:42I appreciate it.
01:45It's a, the desert and me is a love affair.
01:50It's an unconditional love.
01:52It's brutal, but there's something
01:54that nourished my soul deeply.
01:56So I'm not disenchanted.
02:00I love it.
02:00Thank you so much.
02:01It's very hot, though.
02:02We love it.
02:02I've been here 17 years.
02:04It's amazing.
02:04Yeah.
02:05It's good for inspiration.
02:06Yes.
02:07Hi, Dave.
02:07Thank you for it.
02:08How are you?
02:09I'm very well.
02:09Yes, that is a microphone.
02:12Did you expect Dune to be such a spectacular sci-fi,
02:15cultural touchstone?
02:17Yes.
02:19Really?
02:19Of course I did, yeah.
02:21Of course.
02:22Obviously, I did the first one.
02:23But speaking with Denny and knowing
02:25how passionate he was about the books growing up,
02:29and this was his dream, I knew it was going to be amazing.
02:31I knew it was going to be epic, yeah.
02:32Right.
02:33And Abu Dhabi, it's your first time, I know, so.
02:34It's my first time here, yeah.
02:35I think a lot of people assume that because I
02:37was in desert scenes that I actually
02:38got to shoot in the desert.
02:39But I know I never did.
02:40Oh, perhaps Dune 3?
02:41I'm really resentful, a little resentful about it.
02:45But Dune 3, inshallah, I hope you're back here filming.
02:48I hope, yeah.
02:49I hope.
02:49That's the dream.
02:52It's a huge team, not only about CMA,
02:55not only about film commission, it's
02:56about Abu Dhabi, who are contributed
02:59huge in this event.
03:01Part one, we have only five days of shooting in Abu Dhabi.
03:06Part two, we have one month, OK?
03:09So it's proving that the staff and the production crew
03:15and the leaders of the film loves Abu Dhabi.
03:20And proving how the support from Abu Dhabi film commission,
03:24CMA, Abu Dhabi stakeholders, all the support
03:28come to them in the five days.
03:30So they come back and say that we
03:32want to expand our schedule in Abu Dhabi
03:35to make it like one month.
03:36And as you said, part two, when you see the movie,
03:39and I believe you saw it, this is like we
03:43are proud to have Jordan in it and other Arab countries.
03:47However, Abu Dhabi, like the shooting days was huge.
03:52Yeah, 27 days from what I remember.
03:54Leva Desert, of course.
03:55Exactly.
03:55It was about five, and now we're to around nearly a month,
03:5927 days.
04:00And I think it wasn't really hard to convince the director.
04:04I mean, seriously, he fell in love.
04:06And even for me, from Abu Dhabi, I go to the desert a lot.
04:11Every time I go, I still fall in love with it.
04:13It's just a beautiful location.
04:16We've seen in the past, many directors
04:19decided to film in Leva Desert because of how spectacular it
04:22is.
04:23Right.
04:23So yeah, this time, we had a good one month of shoot,
04:28and much more interesting solutions
04:31that we had to come to facilitate and support
04:33the production, talking about needing more accommodation.
04:37So we had to actually literally, with the local production
04:40company, Epic Films, build a village in the desert,
04:45fully serviced, to service the crew.
04:49About 150, it has about 150 crew members.
04:53And then other than that, working
04:54with our stakeholders and the partnerships
04:59that we have with the government entities,
05:01there was a solution that needed to be
05:03happened to build the infrastructure for all these
05:05because we filmed around 20 different locations
05:08across the desert.
05:09And we're in the desert, so moving
05:12around these locations is not going to be that easy.
05:15Right.
05:15And it is literally in the middle of the desert.
05:18So the solution was that the road,
05:2230 kilometer road in the desert, so
05:25that it can ease the movement of the crew
05:29around the different locations, and also
05:31be able to even carry the heavyweight filming equipment
05:36and move them from one place to another.