Too many movie studios attempt to set up a potential series before a first film has any chance of making enough money or goodwill from fans to warrant them.

The most infamous of these in recent years was Universal’s Dark Universe, a reboot of classic Universal movie monsters that announced a half dozen projects only for the first film, “The Mummy” starring Tom Cruise, to underperform at the box office and be lampooned by audiences and critics just a couple months later.

I bring this up because of last week’s release of “Dune: Part Two,” director Denis Villeneuve’s sequel to his 2021 “Dune” adaptation that was released without the public realizing it was only part one. It turns out Legendary Pictures had only greenlit an adaptation of the first half of Frank Herbert’s science-fiction epic with no immediate plans for part two.

Thankfully, after that first film was a box office hit, received rave reviews and went on to receive six Oscars as well as a nomination for Best Picture. Greenlit mere days later, Villeneuve, his team and the star-studded cast got to work.

Two years and a few months later, the second film is here and the consensus is pretty universal: it’s bigger and it’s better — not only one of the best science-fiction films of the decade but one of the best sequels of all time.

Picking up where part one left off, young Duke Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) and his mother Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson) are taken in by the Fremen, the native people of the desert planet Arrakis, also known as Dune. They are taught the native tribes’ ways by leader Stilgar (Javier Bardem) and young warrior Chani (Zendaya) with the ultimate goal of seeking revenge against the conspirators who destroyed the Atreides family.

Meanwhile, Baron Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgård) and his nephew Feyd-Rautha (Austin Butler), now in control of Arrakis, plot to usurp the throne from Emperor of the Known Universe (Christopher Walken) and his daughter Princess Irulan (Florence Pugh). But there are rumors in the desert that a new Fremen leader has emerged — their long-prophesied messiah meant to free the planet’s people from intergalactic rule.

Long thought unadaptable (just look at the David Lynch version from 1984), adapting the novel was a monumental task that Villeneuve and his team have taken on with the same approach as much of his Hollywood success — take your time to do it right.

It may be nearly three hours long, but there is deliberate pacing and attention to detail in the world-building that just would not work in two hours. There is so much story and so many important elements that need to unfold and develop naturally to work as the climax gets closer.

Something Villeneuve understands better than any other director working today is a sense of scale and weight to epic storytelling. A scene of Paul looking across the desert to a blurry bump under the sand miles away growing closer and closer until a 10-story-high, mile-long sandworm crashes into the dunes below him — Hans Zimmer’s trans-like score and a meticulously crafted sound scape blaring in the speakers to the point of making the theater seats vibrate — are unlike anything you’ve seen in years, and the pacing and craft make it all the more affecting.

Of course, an unparalleled production is one thing, but it’s the story and people in it that make a movie stick around. With an already stellar cast listed above, all the relationships between them — positive and negative, romantic and familial, genuine or manipulative — the complex political story is complemented by scenes of natural character building, often smaller, quieter moments of reflection in between the gigantic battles, and all of them work in tandem toward that inevitable finale.

A third film based on the second book in the series, “Dune Messiah,” has not been given the official green light yet. But based on “Part Two” being received even better than the first, the openness all the cast and crew have about being ready to start and precedent already established, I don’t think anyone will be surprised to see a third installment with a new contender in the best movie trilogies discussion.