

You need to make sure that there’s equality between the voices of genders. That would be my biggest angle to bring Dune into the 21st century.
Dune denis villeneuve movie#
I would say that the movie is designed-structured-on those two main characters. Paul Atreides is the main character, but very close to him is Lady Jessica. When I started to work with Eric Roth, he said, “What would be the most important thing that we should bring upfront in this adaptation?” And I said, “Women.” In the book, Lady Jessica, Paul’s mother, is a very, very important character, a character that triggers the story. What's an example of balancing theme and storytelling? I didn’t want the complexity of the story to be in the way of the entertainment value, of the power of the movie, the emotional value of the movie. But the most important thing for me is to keep the sense of adventure and that sense of an epic. All the things-the political themes, religious themes, and environmental themes-need to be there.
Dune denis villeneuve update#
As you were adapting it, were you trying to update it so that it could apply as much to our world as it did to Herbert’s world? The book is an allegory for religious themes, for political themes. It’s the movie I’ve wanted to make for such a long time.” And Hans looked at me with very serious eyes and said that it is dangerous to try to go so close to the sun. I was surrounded by people who were very enthusiastic from the beginning, but I remember a conversation I had with Hans Zimmer when I was talking about it and saying, “ Dune is one of my biggest dreams. To please that teenager is very difficult. You know what the biggest challenge is? It’s to be able to reach the level of passion and the image I had as a teenager. I knew that I was ready to tackle this, but yes, it’s a big challenge. Life is short! We are bound to try to do the impossible. Was there ever any pushback to you taking this on? Dune, especially, almost feels unfilmable in its scope. I knew that I was able to do it.”īoth Blade Runner 2049 and Dune are wildly ambitious undertakings. “Once I did Blade Runner, I had the chops, skill, and the knowledge to be able to tackle something that was this big of a challenge,” says the Quebecois director. Truly, if any modern director could make something that will appease both critics and the Herbert faithful, it’s him. (It’s not bad as a schlock classic, though.) In the early aughts, William Hurt starred in a three-part miniseries based on the book, but it too failed to generate much good will.
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/69612922/Screen_Shot_2020_09_09_at_12.21.44_PM.0.png)
Dune denis villeneuve full#
David Lynch picked up where he left off, and even though he succeeded in getting a Dune movie to theaters, he fell short of bringing the full complexity of Herbert’s story with it. Famously, Chilean director Alejandro Jodorowsky attempted an adaptation in the 1970s, but he was never able to get it off the ground. In fact, many have tried-with middling results. Just when it seemed his last feature- Blade Runner 2049, a sequel to Ridley Scott’s beloved masterpiece-would be his boldest yet, he announced his next: Dune.įrank Herbert’s book, originally published in 1965, is a mammoth tome of philosophy, ecology, politics, and sci-fi world-building so intricate and epic it seems almost impossible to film. From tackling the war on drugs along the US-Mexico border in Sicario to having Amy Adams communicate with nonverbal aliens in Arrival, his films tend to go big. Denis Villeneuve has never lacked for ambition.
