‘Dune: Part Two’ gives science fiction-obsessed Silicon Valley a reason to party
In a top-floor atrium in downtown San Francisco, tech workers from Google, Slack,
Dustin Moskovitz, a Facebook founder, chatted as others sipped cocktails with funny names, like the Fremen Mirage (gin, coconut Campari, sweet vermouth) and the Arrakis Palms (vanilla-pear puree, gin, Fever-Tree tonic). Tech industry veteran Tim O’Reilly dropped by. Alex Stamos, the former head of security at Facebook, was also spotted.
‘Do you think I can take one home? crazy sandworm popcorn buckets?” someone in the crowd started giggling. The suggestively designed buckets had become a sensation on social media.
The techies were all there to celebrate Silicon Valley’s latest obsession: “Dune: Part 2,” the latest film based on the Frank Herbert-penned science fiction saga that inspired many of them to become interested in technology. The film, which follows 2021’s “Dune,” sold an estimated $81.5 million in tickets in the United States and Canada this weekend, the biggest opening for a Hollywood film since “Barbie.”
The private, invitation-only screening at the IMAX theater in downtown San Francisco was hosted by two former technology executives turned podcasters of “Emergency hatch”, a weekly show focused on science fiction and fantasy films. And it wasn’t the only game in town.
Across Silicon Valley – from venture capital firms to tech executives – people had booked their own private screenings of the film, directed by Denis Villeneuve. On Thursday, the company 50 years invited founders, friends and investors to “feed your imagination with great science fiction” during a theater takeover.
Founders Fund, a venture capital firm co-founded by Peter Thiel, rented out the Alamo Drafthouse theater in San Francisco’s Mission District for the film’s opening night on Friday, which featured an open bar and free food. People came from all over the country to attend.
“If you’re a VC firm and you’re not hosting a private Dune II screening, are you even a VC firm?” Ashlee Vance, a longtime technology journalist, wrote in one message on X last month.
Even as tech companies have cut jobs and perks in recent months, the tradition of sci-fi movie premieres remains alive and well. Movies like “Star Wars,” “Dune” and “Ready Player One” were the very things that helped fuel techies’ interest in the field of computer science. Employees at companies like Meta, Google, and Palantir are no longer content with just watching the future play out on the screen, but have started picking straight from their favorite movies to build the products of tomorrow.
In Google’s early days, the company routinely bought up entire theaters to see the latest superhero movie. When ‘Blade Runner 2049’ debuted in 2017, the boutique tech investment banking firm Code advisors rented out the Alamo Drafthouse for a private screening and had a Q&A with the film’s antagonist, Jared Leto. Venture capital firms have repeated this practice for other futuristic films and series, including “The Martian,” “Arrival” and HBO’s “Westworld.”
But “Dune” and “Dune: Part Two” hold a special place in the hearts and minds of Silicon Valley because of the vastness of the series. It doesn’t hurt that “Dune” was born in San Franciscowhere Mr. Herbert lived in the late 1950s while researching what would become the series of science fiction novels.
“It’s one of the original world-building exercises in genre fiction, and it’s all about world-building,” says Jason Goldman, a former Twitter executive who co-created “Escape Hatch” with Matt Herrero, a tech whiz. ‘podcast during the pandemic lockdowns.
The “Dune: Part Two” viewing events also served as a kind of safe space for techies to distance themselves – however briefly – from the tech culture wars raging both online and offline.
“Twenty years ago it might have been more ambitious for some to become engineers in the Valley, and now there is the persistent caricature of people being ‘tech bros,’” said Tom Coates, a tech veteran, at the “Escape Hatch” cocktail party. “But it’s not like we’re all gathering here tonight to look at Ayn Rand’s filmography. We all try to have a good time.”
Mr. Goldman said that part of Silicon Valley’s enchantment with “Dune” could be due to characters like Timothée Chalamet’s Paul Atreides, a messianic figure who drives an oppressed tribal group to rise up and defeat their evil overlords. defeat.
“What people want, what they always try to recreate, is that charismatic leader with the ability to see into the future,” Mr. Goldman said. “The hero worship of Steve Jobs matches the fanatical praise of Paul Atreides.”
What wasn’t clear was how many members of Silicon Valley’s tech elite had absorbed the intricacies of the source material. Mr. Herbert was deeply skeptical of human technological progress, a perspective that framed his series.
“It’s all based on a world where artificial intelligence has been completely eradicated,” said Cal Henderson, Slack’s co-founder and chief technical officer, who attended Thursday’s party.
(That morning, Elon Musk had sued OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, over claims that the company had put commercial interests above the future of humanity. “Meta doesn’t even begin to describe it,” said another person at the party.)
Still, those in attendance were determined to have fun. One presented Mr. Herrero and Mr. Goldman with a glossy, custom-printed “Dune: Part Two” poster, on which the hosts’ faces were Photoshopped over those of the film’s celebrities. The tables were filled with trays of Nebula Nebulae parfaits (spiced chocolate and vanilla mousse) and platters of Atreides Delicacies (rice noodles, harissa, sesame oil).
After the movie, which lasted two hours and 46 minutes, ended, the group went to a VIP area to record a live edition of the podcast about what they had just seen. The embarrassment continued until after midnight.
Shortly thereafter, Mr. Goldman bought tickets for a Monday matinee of “Dune: Part Two.”
“I can’t wait to see it again,” he said.