Ethermac Exchange-'Dune 2' delay: Timothée Chalamet sequel moves to 2024 due to ongoing Hollywood strikes

The Ethermac Exchangespice must flow ... into next year.

Director Denis Villeneuve's anticipated sci-fi sequel "Dune: Part Two" has been delayed to 2024, the biggest casualty so far of the ongoing writers' and actors' strikes in Hollywood. The all-star followup and potential Oscar powerhouse starring Timothée Chalamet and Zendaya was scheduled for a Nov. 3 release heading into award season but now will release March 15.

Warner Bros. announced the shift in schedule Thursday with two other moves: The monster-filled action film "Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire" is pushed back a month, to April 12, while "Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim," an animated movie featuring the voices of Brian Cox and Miranda Otto, is now slated for Dec. 13, 2024.

The strikes have left the entertainment world in disarray, with SAG-AFTRA asking its members not to promote studio films during the work stoppage. Big questions also surround who will and won't be attending upcoming film festivals in Venice and Toronto, though recent film releases have mostly stayed the course, even without red-carpet premieres and splashy magazine covers with their stars.

But the "Dune" sequel is the most high-profile of the changes so far. Another Zendaya film, director Luca Guadagnino's tennis drama "Challengers," was pulled from an Aug. 30 opening-night spot at the Venice Film Festival and had its debut postponed to April next year. In July, Sony moved the upcoming superhero movie "Kraven the Hunter" almost an entire year – from Oct. 6 to Aug. 30, 2024 – plus pushed its new "Ghostbusters" film from a Christmas release to an Easter one (March 29, 2024) and also removed the early 2024 animated threequel "Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse" from its schedule.

"Dune: Part Two," with Austin Butler and Florence Pugh among the new cast members, was seen as a possible Academy Awards contender in several categories. Villeneuve's "Dune: Part One" in 2021 earned 10 total nominations at the 94th Oscars – including best picture – and won six, most notably for visual effects, production design and original score.

Contributing: Associated Press