Skip to main content

Denis Villeneuve explains why Dune had to be adapted into two movies

Director Denis Villeneuve said one movie just wasn’t enough to do justice to Frank Herbert’s sci-fi epic novel Dune.

“I would not agree to make this adaptation of the book with one single movie,” Villeneuve told Vanity Fair in an in-depth preview of his upcoming blockbuster. “The world is too complex. It’s a world that takes its power in details.”

#DUNE FIRST LOOK: Oscar Isaac is Duke Leto, father of Paul and head of House Atreides.

See more from @Breznican's film preview: https://t.co/ubFGRO3FWu pic.twitter.com/X6nNB4YAYC

— VANITY FAIR (@VanityFair) April 14, 2020

The Sicario and Arrival director is helming the star-studded adaptation of the seminal novel, which tells the story of a young nobleman who finds himself thrust into conflict on the desert planet Arrakis after rivals target his family. The big-budget cast includes Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Josh Brolin, Oscar Isaac, and Rebecca Ferguson.

Warner Brothers has not greenlit the second film yet. That will all depend on the success of the first film, however, which Villeneuve said would cover the first half of Herbert’s first book in the series. 

This adaptation is the second big-screen attempt at Herbert’s masterwork, the first being a 1984 flop directed by David Lynch. 

Villeneuve told Vanity Fair he considers Lynch “one of the best filmmakers alive,” but his version set to hit theaters in December will be different.

Villeneuve said it’s ”a book that tackles politics, religion, ecology, spirituality — and with a lot of characters. I think that’s why it’s so difficult. Honestly, it’s by far the most difficult thing I’ve done in my life.”

He also said the film tries to wrangle the broader context of Herbert’s book, “a distant portrait of the reality of the oil and the capitalism and the exploitation — the overexploitation — of Earth. Today, things are just worse,” he said.

But, he still considers the heart of it to be a “coming of age” story about the aristocrat Paul Atreides, played by Chalamet. 

As loyal as he wants to be to the book, the writing takes some liberties by adding more female characters and making Baron Harkonnen less of a “caricature,” according to Villeneuve. 

Dune is set to hit theaters December 18. 

Editors' Recommendations

Mythili Sampathkumar
Mythili is a freelance journalist based in New York. When not reporting about politics, foreign policy, entertainment, and…
5 great multiverse movies to watch besides Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
Miles Morales falls through a multiverse portal in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.

The concept of the multiverse is a natural fit for sci-fi movie premises, but it's now expanded beyond that. The last few years have made the multiverse plot device more mainstream than ever across a few subgenres. This month alone has two major blockbusters using it as the crux of their stories, from the widely acclaimed Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse to the forthcoming DC reboot The Flash.

Academy Award juggernaut and indie darling Everything Everywhere All at Once is another shining example of the multiverse gimmick done well in movies. Here are six great multiverse movies you need to watch.
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse/Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

Read more
All the Transformers movies, ranked
Optimus Prime readies to fight in Transformers.

From giant robot fights to ultra-cheesy relationship dynamics, the Transformers franchise has brought spectacle to the big screen for decades now. The franchise, which just welcomed its eighth film, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, has brought in billions at the box office, making it a modern-day action hit that won't fail to be remembered — for better or worse.

Even before action aficionado Michael Bay transformed the Hasbro toys into live-action superheroes, Transformers had been a part of popular culture for years. The franchise's immense success has allowed it to grow considerably past its origins as a giant-robot-versus-giant-robot showdown. Its expansive mythology is set to grow even further in Rise of the Beasts, which will pit the Autobots against Unicron, a villainous planet-eating Transformer.

Read more
The best shows on Netflix in June 2023
Arnold Schwarzenegger in Arnold.

Seasons come and go, but Netflix doesn't believe in slowing down just because summer has arrived. That's one of the reasons why we love the streaming era, because it means that the summer months are no longer a TV wasteland. After the premiere of the fourth and final season of Manifest last week, Netflix has followed that with the last season of Never Have I Ever and the premiere of a new documentary about Arnold Schwarzenegger. And June isn't over yet.

Do you need help keeping up with all of the new Netflix shows? We can you help you with that, because it's our calling to pour over everything coming and going to this streamer so we can give you our weekly roundup of the best shows on Netflix.

Read more