The first trailer for Denis Villeneuve’s Dune has just been released – check it out below.

The upcoming sci-fi epic, based on the first half of Frank Herbert’s 1965 novel of the same name, is due for release this December.

• Read more: ‘Dune’ on TV: revisiting John Harrison’s underrated small-screen saga

Dune stars Timothée Chalamet as Paul Atreides, the son of a noble family tasked with protecting “the spice”, the most valuable substance in the universe found on the desert planet Arrakis.

Rebecca Ferguson will play Paul’s mother Lady Jessica, while Duke Leto Atreides is portrayed by Oscar Isaac. Josh Brolin, Stellan Skarsgård, Zendaya, Charlotte Rampling, Jason Momoa and Javier Bardem also star.

Watch the first trailer for Dune here:

Beyond fear, destiny awaits. Watch the trailer for the highly anticipated #DuneMovie now. pic.twitter.com/UFLJzrpf72

— DUNE (@dunemovie) September 9, 2020

Discussing the scale of the upcoming film, Chalamet recently explained to Empire what it was like to film in the Wadi Rum desert to recreate the world of the book. “That part of the Wadi Rum is so awe-inspiring, you might as well be getting chased by that cliff in the background,” he said.

“It wasn’t a green-screen or anything. That’s one of the most thrilling parts of the book and the movie. We had the sketches. That was a lesson for me. On Call Me By Your Name or Beautiful Boy it can be counterintuitive to see the storyboards because then maybe you limit yourself based on a camera angle or whatever. It’s the opposite [here] because, for a sequence with the sandworm chasing you, I could never imagine that.”

Dune will be released in cinemas on December 18.