Director Denis Villeneuve has been on a hell or a roll lately and showed off quite a versatility in the past few years. Coming off the critically admired, commercially successful 2013 thriller Prisoners (which earned an Oscar nomination) and last year’s gritty suspense story Sicario (another critical and commercial hit which earned 3 Oscar nominations), Villeneuve topped off 2016 with the surprisingly robust Amy Adams vehicle Arrival (which has already earned $87 million domestically) and has the anticipated science fiction sequel Blade Runner 2049 waiting in the wings for next year. Variety reports that Villeneuve is also now potentially ready to board reboot of Dune.
Dune is a science fiction adventure story that centers around a Duke’s son, who leads desert warriors against the galactic emperor and his father’s evil nemesis when they assassinate his father and free their desert world from the emperor’s rule. Based on Frank Herbert’s novel, the property famously was already adapted to screen by way of the 1984 film written and directed by David Lynch. That feature starred Kyle MacLachlan, Virginia Madsen, Linda Hunt and José Ferrer and was a failure critically and at the box office when it arrived in theaters (it did however earn a Best Sound nomination from the Oscars that year); since then the film has netted a cult leaning.
Legendary Pictures has been gunning for the rights for a Dune update and, as of a few weeks ago, closed a deal with the Frank Herbert estate. Legendary appears to be hoping to expand the universe of the novel to include not just a big-screen update but also a television component; it’s unclear if Villeneuve will have anything to do with the property on the television side or if he just being considered to direct the feature film. Thomas Tull, Mary Parent, and Cale Boyter would serve as producers on the project.
We shall stay tuned.
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