The last time a major Hollywood studio Frank Herbert’s classic sci-fi novel when they disavow one of their films.
Unsurprisingly, this behind-the-scenes drama ended with a movie that was poorly reviewed and failed at the box office. Legendary Pictures is giving it another crack with Blade Runner 2049 director Denis Villeneuve, Dune.
It’s a ion project for Villeneuve
Denis Villeneuve has such care for his craft that you’d think all of his movies were ion projects, but Dune, but it’s a long process to get the rights, and I don’t think I will succeed.”
The cast is filled with A-listers
The cast of the indie darling who starred in Lady Bird and Call Me By Your Name, and Rebecca Ferguson, who has played the female lead in the last couple of Mission: Impossible movies, are playing the lead roles of Paul Atreides and Lady Jessica, respectively.
Oscar Isaac is the third-billed star, and whether he’s in a big-budget spectacle like Star Wars or a low-budget, small-scale thriller like The Two Faces of January, he’s always fantastic. Foreign film favorites Javier Bardem and Charlotte Rampling will also appear in the film.
It has a lot of MCU actors in its cast
The star-studded cast of the new Dave Bautista, who (obviously) plays Drax the Destroyer; and David Dastmalchian, who plays an associate of Scott and Luis in the Ant-Man movies. Perhaps Villeneuve is a big fan of comic book movies. He also threw in a DCEU star, Jason Momoa, for good measure.
It’ll be released on November 20, 2020
the Dwayne Johnson action vehicle Red Notice and a movie adaptation of the Clifford the Big Red Dog books. An MCU movie is hitting theaters on November 6, so it might also face rivalry from that.
Eric Roth and Jon Spaihts are co-writing with Villeneuve
While Denis Villeneuve is working on the script for his own adaptation of the acclaimed Bradley Cooper/Lady Gaga vehicle A Star is Born. Spaihts wrote the Chris Pratt/Jennifer Lawrence sci-fi romance engers and contributed to the screenplays for such big-budget blockbusters as Doctor Strange, Tom Cruise’s The Mummy, and Prometheus. He’s also attached as an executive producer on the Minecraft movie.
It’s been in development since 2008
A new film version of Frank Herbert’s what would become Denis Villeneuve’s vision for the adaptation that we’ll see next year.
The languages are being created by Game of Thrones’ Dothraki creator
The producers of Dune, he is creating the Chakobsa language, which is spoken by the Fremen on the desert planet of Arrakis. It’s been announced that the language will be derived from Arabic (a not-so-well-hidden secret is that most made-up languages are derived from real-life languages).
The movie only covers the first half of the novel to leave room for a sequel
According to Brian Herbert, the son of Dune franchise and lead into a sequel, saying, “There’s a logical place to stop the [first] movie before the book is over.” It’s not always a good idea to talk about sequels before the first one has even been released, but the powers that be behind this one seem pretty confident.
There’s already a Dune franchise in the works
In addition to the door being left open for a sequel, there’s a TV spin-off from it will premiere exclusively on WarnerMedia’s streaming service (the one that they’re taking Friends back from Netflix for).
The series will serve as a prequel to the plot of the film, focusing on the Bene Gesserit. Jon Spaihts, one of the screenwriters credited on the movie, has been signed on to write the pilot script for the series, while Denis Villeneuve himself will direct the show’s first episode, and both will act as executive producers.
It’ll be 'Star Wars for adults'
Denis Villeneuve has said that his vision for the movie adaptation of Dune, so it’s going to be a challenge to [tackle] this.
The ambition is to do the Star Wars movie I never saw. In a way, it’s Star Wars for adults. We’ll see.” Funnily enough, David Lynch Dune, so the two have always been closely linked behind the scenes.
