Image Credit: Warner Bros.
2026 is Zendaya’s year: the young actress, one of Hollywood’s hottest stars, is currently in theaters with the dark comedy The Drama, but her face will be among the most recognizable on the big screen this year. In July, we’ll see her in Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey and in Spider-Man: Brand New Day.
The year will wrap up with Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Three, not to mention her small-screen commitments, which will see the actress return in a few days to the iconic role of Rue in the third season of Euphoria. A packed schedule of premieres and press tours has led Zendaya to clarify that after four films in a single year, she’ll be taking a long break. But before that happens, one question lies at the heart of her incredible cinematic and television feat: how did the actress manage to shoot Dune: Part Three and Spider-Man at the same time? Filming for the third chapter of Villeneuve’s saga has kept the star of The Drama busy since July 2025… and filming for the new MCU movie also began that same month.
Even though she plays Spider-Man’s love interest and is a Marvel character, Zendaya hasn’t yet developed the ability to be in both Budapest and Dubai for Dune and in Glasgow to play MJ. Yet the actress managed to shoot both films almost simultaneously. The secret? “Great planning,” Zendaya told The Tonight Show. “It was pretty disorienting, because while we were shooting Dune, I’d switch to Spider-Man, then go back to Dune, and then back to Spider-Man again.”
The star lived a hectic life for months: “Literally, the day I finished filming Euphoria,” the actress told Jimmy Fallon, “it was around 4 a.m., and I had a flight in a few hours to go to Budapest to film Dune. So I thought, ‘I’ll pack all my stuff and leave in a single night.’” We can’t rule out that this meticulous scheduling was driven by particularly tight timelines for both projects: if Villeneuve stays true to Frank Herbert’s novel, we’ll likely only see Chani on the small screen for a very short time. MJ’s appearance in Spider-Man: Brand New Day might also be quite limited.
The actress will be taking a break, but she can’t forget that she’s one of the most in-demand faces of the moment: Zendaya already has a remake of a hugely popular action film on her schedule!
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