Culture

In ‘Dune 2’, Austin Butler Looks Just Like Peter Dutton (According To Twitter)

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The first promotional image for the second part of director Denis Villeneuve’s gritty remake of the sandy science fiction epic Dune has been released, along with the announcement that a bunch of celebrity A-listers including Austin Butler, Florence Pugh, and Christopher Walken are joining the cast.

Sorry to everyone hoping for a cinematic still of Florence Pugh escaping a ferocious sandworm or Christopher Walken decked out in sci-fi aristocratic regalia for his role as galactic emperor. The picture in question mainly reveals that Elvis actor Austin Butler is very bald.

Joining the cast as a foil for protagonists Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) and desert-dwelling Chani (Zendaya), Butler is slated to play the vicious and cunning member of the warlike Harkonnen family Feyd-Rautha. Memorably played by Sting in David Lynch’s doomed 1984 Dune film, the role appears to involve a transformation that could rival Butler’s Oscar-winning portrayal of Elvis. 

But eagle-eyed Twitter user Sam Twyford-Moore noticed that Butler’s appearance bears a spooky resemblance to the current head of the federal Liberal Party: Opposition Leader Peter Dutton.

While some kind of cursed biopic centred on Dutton’s shaky rise to power is unlikely, Butler’s shapeshifting abilities could open the door to many other Dutton-related possibilities. I’m specifically envisioning a streaming series that follows the bumbling antics of Liberal leaders circa 2015, featuring true stories like when Dutton was caught making jokes about rising sea levels in a scene straight out of Curb Your Enthusiasm.