Dune Remake Story
There have been attempts to bring Dune to the screen since David Lynch’s 1984 film, notably the Sci-Fi Channel’s 2000 mini-series, which was perhaps more faithful to the source material, but lacked the resources of Lynch’s big screen attempt. That was followed by the Children of Dune mini-series, which combined elements of the second and third books from the series, Dune Messiah and Children of Dune.
One of the key failures of Lynch’s Dune movie was to try and condense the massive first book into one film. It also gives the (incorrect) impression that story ended with any sense of closure, when the source material didn’t. Any new attempt to make Dune not only has to factor in the other books in the series, but has to take into account the simple reality that the first book might be too big for one movie. Vileneuve seems to understand this, recently saying “Dune will probably take two years to make…The goal is to make two films, maybe more.” (via The Playlist). This is excellent news for fans of the saga, and Legendary is hoping to begin production in early 2019. There’s also already the first TV spinoff in the works to flesh out the world even further.
“Most of the main ideas of Star Wars are coming from Dune so it’s going to be a challenge to [tackle] this,” Villeneuve told Fandom back in January. “The ambition is to do the Star Wars movie I never saw. In a way, it’s Star Wars for adults. We’ll see.”
Frank Herbert wrote six Dune novels, each more bonkers than the last. The saga has since been continued by Herbert’s son along with sci-fi author Kevin J. Anderson. But again, even just keeping the focus on Frank Herbert’s first six, or even first three books, Dune simply can’t be contained by a single film. Perhaps the biggest failing of the David Lynch version was its attempt to give closure to what was really only the beginning of the story. But it seems that’s the plan here, as Villeneuve told Fandom, “the idea is to start from the very first book.”
But Dune, with its sprawling, psychedelic, intergalactic story of royalty, prophesy, and fiefdoms has proven notoriously difficult to do justice on screen. The most notable failure remains Alejandro Jodorowsky’s years-long quest to bring the movie to life using everyone from legendary comic book artist Moebius to Mick Jagger to Salvador Dali. This was chronicled in the stunning Jodorowsky’s Dune documentary, which is ironically the best Dune-related thing to ever actually make it to the screen. Seriously, you need to check it out.
Mike Cecchini can be found folding space in his spare time and on Twitter.