Abu Dhabi’s Liwa Desert is back on sandworm duty. The Abu Dhabi Film Commission has released new behind-the-scenes images from Dune: Part Three, showing Denis Villeneuve’s production returning to the Liwa Desert, whose dunes have helped define Arrakis across the trilogy.
Timothée Chalamet returns as Paul Atreides, while Zendaya is back as Chani, placing the story’s emotional fracture lines right where the last film left them: somewhere between love, power and the extremely poor long-term planning that often comes with empire.
Why Abu Dhabi’s Liwa Desert keeps becoming Arrakis
The Liwa Desert, a large oasis area in the Western Region of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, has supplied a major part of the visual identity of Arrakis throughout Villeneuve’s adaptations of Frank Herbert’s work. In the films, that desert planet is both a sacred resource battleground and home to the franchise’s enormous sandworms, who remain excellent at making human ambition look small.
Sameer Al Jaberi, head of the Abu Dhabi Film Commission, called the return a major moment for the local industry.
“The opportunity to once again work with the incredible cast and crew from ‘Dune: Part Three’ as Abu Dhabi’s Liwa Desert stars as Arrakis for Denis Villeneuve’s culminating installment was really a poignant and pivotal moment for the entire creative ecosystem of Abu Dhabi,” he said in a statement.
