Zendaya’s loyal fans ran to the movie theaters to see her latest flick, Dune, when it came out over the weekend--but the star’s scarce screentime has a lot of people upset.
Over the past few weeks, the actress has been absolutely killing red carpet after red carpet, showing off her stunning looks while attending various premieres from the film. Zendaya has also been doing a ton of press for the film alongside costar Timothée Chalamet, showing off their great chemistry annd getting viewers excited to see that play out on screen.
Unfortunately, once it came time to actually watch the movie, the actress’ role was a lot smaller than anyone thought, only appearing for 7 minutes throughout the two-and-a-half hour film.
The second they left the theater (or finished watching Dune on HBO Max) viewers had a lot to say, taking to Twitter to voice their frustrations over Zendaya’s lack of screentime.
“This is literally all Zendaya does in her 2 minutes of screen time in Dune i‘m not joking,” one fan wrote, attaching a video of Emma Roberts smiling and laughing.
“The credits were longer than Zendaya’s camera time in Dune,” said another viewer.
Another added, “Now see, all the Dune fans coming out like “well if you had read the book you’d know her character isn’t....” I DON’T WANT TO READ THE BOOK I WANT TO SEE ZENDAYA WHAT’S NOT CLICKING STEVEN.”
Luckily for everyone upset, this isn’t the last we’ll see of Zendaya’s charagter. According to reports, this is merely “Part One.” The movie is expected to have a sequel, where her character will play a much bigger role.
The director of the film, Denis Villeuneve, confirmed that Zendaya will be the “protagonist” in the second film during an interview with Il Venerdì di Repubblica, via Collider.
“I can’t wait to shoot the second part of Dune to get [Timothée Chalamet and Zendaya] back together,” he said. “Knowing that in the next chapter Zendaya will be the protagonist of the story.”
Even though a second film hasn’t been formally announced, Denis told The Los Angeles Times, “There are some characters that are less developed that I’m keeping for the second film — that’s the way I found the equilibrium. We tried in this movie to stay as close as possible to Paul’s experience.”
“Then, in the second one, I will have time to develop some characters that were left aside a little bit,” he continued. “That‘s the theory. I hope it will work.”
