Given that Edric is a mutant who spends his time in a giant tank and Bijaz is a dwarf, Scytale seems like the most likely part for Pattinson. As seen in the HBO series Dune: Prophecy, Face-dancers are shape-shifters, who take on the features of anyone. Scytale uses that ability to infiltrate Paul’s inner circle and to threaten the family in a way he could never imagine.
Obviously, Pattinson’s range and gift for playing oddballs would make him an ideal Scytale, the natural evolution past Austin Butler’s Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen as an arch-nemesis for Muad’Dib. But Villeneuve has already shown a willingness to move beyond the confines of a particular book with his adaptations. Dune: Part Two features several pulls from later entries in the series, most notably Anya Taylor-Joy appearing in a vision as the adult Alia Atreides, Paul’s little sister who isn’t even born yet in that movie (although she is a prominent teenage character in the novel Dune: Messiah).
In other words… if Villeneuve decides to do something similar and have a well-known actor play a cameoing character from a later book, Pattinson could be playing one of the most interesting characters in Herbert’s twisted Dune lore. He could be playing a vision of Paul’s grown son Leto II, one of the weirdest characters in Dune. At this point, if you really don’t want to be spoiled about plot developments that would occur in any potential Dune 4, 5, or 6, please stop reading.
Still with us? So… during the events of Dune: Messiah, Paul and Chani conceive a pair of twins, naming the boy Leto II and the girl Ghanima. The twins then become the focus of Children of Dune, which takes place just over 10 years later. Late in the book, Leto deliberately consumes an excessive amount of the Water of Life and takes refuge among a school of sandworms in their laravel form. He essentially fuses with them, as well. The combination makes Leto into something powerful, but no longer human, allowing him to stop the various threats and secure his version of humanity’s better future: what he calls the Golden Path.
The next book God Emperor of Dune opens 3500 years later, and yet Leto II still lives, but by this point, he’s become the Tyrant Worm, an all-powerful sandworm human monstrosity who, despite his incredible strength, influence, and nigh immortality, still hasn’t achieved his plans for humanity.
From Herbert’s perspective, Leto II is the ultimate perversion of the power politics pursued by the various characters, the twisting of humanity for the sake of safety and control. But from a modern moviegoing audience, Leto II would be the perfect chance for Pattinson to get as wacky as possible. As an actor who’s spent close to 20 years running away from his natural Twilight good looks, and toward the most batshit characters he can find, it would be the challenge. He could play a literal worm-monster with a god complex. Who needs the Batman now?
