Robert Pattinson was never the same after “Twilight,” having struggled with the heartthrob reputation and attention the series brought and uncertain about where he should take his career — especially since he’d already had one fall back into obscurity after “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.” Needless to say, he was in a very different place when he was in talks to star in Paramount Pictures’ “Dune” films, still best known at the time for playing vampire Edward Cullen with a side order of wizard Cedric Diggory.
Everyone who’s followed Pattinson’s career knows what happened next. He completely reinvented himself with a series of indie films and carefully chosen character roles like the Dauphin of France in 2019’s “The King” — in which, ironically enough, he wages war against none other than Timothée Chalamet’s young Henry V. After reemerging in the blockbuster world with Christopher Nolan’s “Tenet” and Matt Reeves’ “The Batman,” Pattinson now enjoys the enviable position of being both a proven big-budget film star and a tried-and-tested indie darling.
No one knows what might’ve happened if Paramount Pictures’ “Dune” film series had been made and Pattinson had chosen to star in them instead of diving headfirst into independent cinema. Still, it does seem likely that moving from the “Twilight” series to a sci-fi franchise helmed by the director of “Taken” and written by relatively unknown screenwriters might have taken his career in a dramatically different direction.
