As post-production on Dune Part 3 shifts into top gear to ensure it meets a December 2026 release date, devotees of Denis Villeneuve’s version of Frank Herbert’s epic tale are impatiently salivating for the first trailer. Folks in the marketing sector should keep a look out for it, too. Because if it’s anything like the main trailer from Dune Part 1 in 2021, it’ll be another masterclass in using sound to deliver what the target audience needs from this third film in what is now considered a franchise.
Back then, in Dune Part 1’s main trailer, two seminal moments revealed more about the forthcoming attraction than anything else. And they were both audio moments.
The first, a barely audible harmonic key change at the beginning of the trailer and the second, a battle cry of defiant rage, both delivered through female vocal cords. For these were the authentic calls to the faithful; the legion of readers who had waited more than 50 years for the perfect film interpretation of Frank Herbert’s book.
Incredible to think that the argument about whether Dune, (a large portion of which was shot in Abu Dhabi) is science fiction, a love story, a satire, a political thriller, a messianic trope and/or a cautionary tale could be settled in two visceral sonic moments. Not just settled but brushed aside as irrelevant.
Because those two audio moments confirmed what every lover of the book has known since reading it; Dune’s principal story line is about the most complex machines in the universe. Women.
Everything else; the giant sandworms, the space-folding spice, the amazing dragonfly-like ornithopters etc., just fill the space between a deep female appreciation for beauty and the raw power of female rebellion against imbalance.
What makes this a masterclass in sonic branding is that sound took the lead in the relationship between movie and movie goer. It was not a support mechanism for a visual representation of the forthcoming film. A visual of a desert supported the harmonic key change, and the stylised Dune logo supported the battle cry.
Let’s do the maths. Dune Part 1 cost around $170m to make. A further $75m was spent on marketing. So call it $250m all in. There were two issues that made this investment risky. The first was that so much of the pre-release hype was whether Villeneuve had managed to stay faithful to the book. A book long considered unfilmable despite earlier attempts.
The second was that the studio wouldn’t greenlight Part 2 until the box office showed a 200 per cent return on the first. Remember that the movie was released at a time when cinema seemed to be dying.
So what did the Dune Brains Trust do?
They dug deep into the emotional memory banks of the book’s fanbase and created a trailer that, whilst being a spectacular feast for new eyes, was an almost supernaturally reminiscent echo to, well, older ears.
Two female vocal expressions that were the perfect touchstones, and ultimately triggering a profit that’ll exceed a billion dollars whilst defying cinema’s forecasted demise.
As more and more marketers in the region are beginning to appreciate the ROI which sonic branding can deliver, it’s becoming increasingly evident that the impact of sound has exceeded its role as just a support to a visual representation of a brand.
And budgets are now starting to reflect sonic branding as a lead player in relationship building.
If that’s true, then what else is there to say but
Let’s hear it for 2026.
By John Smeddle, Head of Creative, WithFeeling
