After a slew of unforeseen delays and setbacks due to the ongoing pandemic, fans have been forced to wait for much longer than anticipated to see Dune, the big-screen adaptation of the Frank Herbert novel that goes by the same name. As a result, the film's production team has been working hard to keep the excitement up, including screenwriter Eric Roth, who promises the film will be well worth the wait.
In a recent interview, Roth revealed that he initially wrote a very full and overwritten draft when Arrival director Denis Villeneuve approached him with the Dune adaptation. While the draft meant a lot to him, Roth said Villeneuve ultimately needed to cut it down in order to hone in more on the main story.
Jon Spaihts, another screenwriter known for co-writing the screenplays for Ridley Scott's Prometheus and Marvel Studios' Doctor Strange, was then brought on board and tasked with streamlining the final Dune script. To give audiences a better idea of the caliber we can expect from the film after all of these revisions, Roth said to Collider: "I don't want to say Lord of the Rings, but I think it's really pretty spectacular," adding that he believes Villeneuve is "a visionary of his own kind."
Dune has been made into a film before with David Lynch's 1984 effort; however, fans of the novel believed there was just too much content from the book to fit into a single movie. With that in mind, Roth assured fans that Villeneuve's remake will be split into parts - likely two - with the upcoming film only covering the first half of the book.
This means that Dune will be set up perfectly for a sequel that finishes the other half; however, nothing has been confirmed as of yet. Creating a franchise with multiple installments can be a gamble, as there's no guarantee the first part will be well-received by audiences. That said, while Roth believes Villeneuve will be able to see a full film series through, he also thinks it's unlikely he himself will be involved in any following installments, saying he thinks he's already done as much as he can do with the material.
According to reports, Dune will be set far into the future on a planet called Arrakis, where a man named Paul Atreides is on the hunt for an extremely rare spice that extends human life. The star-studded cast includes Timothee Chalamet as Paul, Oscar Isaac as his father, as well as Rebecca Ferguson, Dave Bautista, Stellan Skarsgard, and Charlotte Rampling as supporting characters.
Dune is scheduled for theatrical release on October 1, 2021. It will also be available on HBO Max the same day for a month-long run.
Source: Collider