Musicals are more popular right now than they’ve been in a long time thanks to the critical acclaim and widespread popularity of West Side Story, In the Heights, Hamilton, and countless others. Denis Villenueve’s stately sci-fi sequel Dune: Part Two will not be one of them, although there is a reason why we’re stating the blindingly obvious.
In Frank Herbert’s source materials, Gurney Halleck was rather fond of belting out a tune. Naturally, that’s led to questions from Dune enthusiasts as to whether or not Josh Brolin would be hitting any high notes in the second installment, even though he refrained from throwing any jazz hands in the opener.
Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Brolin not only revealed that his singing scenes were cut from Part One, but outlined his hopes that things would stay that wait for the concluding chapter.
“I think the book suggests that, but the book suggests a lot of things. The book suggests his singing, and even though that was something that we actually did, we didn’t use it. And that’s a major, major thing with Gurney. So having just read the second one about two weeks ago, I now know why that [sendoff] was the way it was.
But it’s hard for me to answer that because when Denis is making these choices and having these dreams, talk about immersion, man. The guy gets lost in what he’s doing, completely. I’ve learned, especially as a producer, that post is just as important, if not more important, than what you’ve actually filmed. So I think it was a good place [to leave Gurney]. When I watched it, I was like, “Where did I go?”. I think that was the first reaction. “That’s it?” But that was all selfish.”
Gurney may not be coming back with a showstopping number that brings the house down, but he’ll have a major part to play in Dune: Part Two nonetheless, while it’s always good to know that even Brolin himself was left wondering what happened when his character upped and vanished from the movie.