A thread about the Denis Villeneuve-helmed reboot of DUNE

LONG LIVE THE CHALAMET

Timothee Chalamet (@RealChalamet) in talks to star in Denis Villeneuve's 'Dune' https://t.co/CLKsqLD7jV pic.twitter.com/k6r8WvadDU

— Hollywood Reporter (@THR) July 16, 2018

I'm trying to think of who they could cast to plausibly lose a duel to T.C. Paul Dano?

Smart move

I have just received Draft #4 of the DUNE screenplay from Legendary Pictures. This is for the first movie, covering approximately half of the novel DUNE. I'm very excited and pleased about this, and I'm beginning to burn the midnight oil. pic.twitter.com/nIfgb2zJ2J

— Brian Herbert (@DuneAuthor) July 23, 2018

Feel like Brian Herbert being very excited and pleased about the dune screenplay is a bad sign.

Oh my god yes, get him away from it!
"DuneAuthor" as his Twitter handle, what a nerve.

If I wanted to read the Dune series should I stop at Chapterhouse or are their post Frank Herbert books worth reading?

The consensus is that the post-FH books are pretty weak fanfic at best. Certainly when I picked one of them up in a bookstore I found the writing cringeworthy, and apparently the stories are not much chop ("you know how they ended up banning thinking machines? well here's a story where a thinking machine went bad and t was bad for humanity so they fought back and outlawed them").

Ok so basically like ‘Solo’ then, got it, thanks.

I never got further than ‘Children’ and that was years ago. I wouldn’t mind revisiting them.

I think I have about 150 pages or so left to read in Chapterhouse Dune. I stopped reading it about 20 years ago, every once in a while I have the urge to go back and finish it. I still have the book on the bookshelf with the bookmark where I stopped.

Dave Bautista as Beast Rabban

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/dave-bautista-joins-timoth-e-chalamet-denis-villeneuves-dune-1174273

(Kinda brilliant, really -- that was the only role I could guess would work for him and behold. Also enough of a blank slate character in the book that they can really go to town.)

And Stellan Skarsgard as Baron Harkonnen

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/stellan-skarsg-play-villain-legendarys-dune-1174870

This cast is getting more and more interesting by the day. Charlotte Rampling as Gaius Helen Mohiam.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/charlotte-rampling-joins-timothee-chalamet-dune-1176429

I saw the Lynch version for the first time last year and was surprised to find that it was a faithful and fairly straight-ahead adaptation of the book, hampered by apparently not having shot enough scenes, or else having had the connective tissue edited out by the studio and replaced by voiceover in a panic

anyway I'll watch this for Timothee

Herbert’s characterization beyond Paul and Jessica is pretty light,- even everyone’s favorite character, Duncan Idaho is barely in the book, so there’s a lot that casting can bring to the table. I like it so far.

somebody should write this up

Oscar Isaac potentially in as Leto.

https://variety.com/2019/film/news/oscar-isaac-dune-reboot-1203109822/

the first mildly enticing detail of this farrago tbh

Οὖτις in as a Sam Elliottesque narrator.

“Now this big ol’ dusty planet wasn’t the kind of place folks were fit to survive on...”

Sometimes the you ride the warm, and sometimes the warm rides you.

I saw the Lynch version for the first time last year and was surprised to find that it was a faithful and fairly straight-ahead adaptation of the book, hampered by apparently not having shot enough scenes, or else having had the connective tissue edited out by the studio and replaced by voiceover in a panic

There were a lot of scenes filmed that were cut from the theatrical release - the wiki page gets into some of the details. Of all the cut scenes I've always been hoping that the banquet scene would resurface. It's somewhere out there sitting in a vault - I saw some stills at the 1984 Worldcon promo presentation about three months before the release.

with Count Fenring and the rest of that? that'd be great- i reread the book recently and forgot all about that part of it.

in the book paul is like some suburban white kid's wet dream, total mary sue, and harkonnen is so cartoonishly evil that he comes off as parody... with that being said, the world building is fantastic enough to justify adaptations. i think this movie could really be great if the characters get fleshed out. cast is promising, fingers crossed

Not confirmed but...interesting rumor.

http://collider.com/zendaya-dune-reboot

all the stunt casting that’s engineered to elicit a twitter response isn’t going to change the fact that Villeneuve is gonna make this movie with all the personality of a loaf of Wonder Bread https://t.co/Md8VsfoBbR

— Awards Tse-son (@CarmanTse) January 30, 2019

Kinda true, that.

If Deakins shoots it, I'll just enjoy the view.

Deakins is not involved

Josh Brolin as Gurney Halleck:

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/josh-brolin-joins-timothee-chalamet-dune-1186144

he may be ugly enough, but is he lumpy enough?

josh brolin is hansy imo

Gurney NOT ugly enough and NOT lumpy enough—Dune certified rotten!!!

And Jason Momoa as Duncan Idaho!

https://variety.com/2019/film/news/jason-momoa-dune-reboot-legendary-1203140272/

My favorite thing about "Dune"? There's a character named DUNCAN IDAHO.

Was Herbert munching on breakfast one morning, glancing sleepily at some boxes on the kitchen counter: mashed potato mix here, cake mix there...? "AHAAA!!"

Momoa angling for a multi picture deal

God preserve us from the sequels

Bro of Dune

I remember a party in college where my wasted sci-fi nerd cousin learned our friend Duncan was moving to Idaho and lost his shit and nobody else knew what he was talking about or why he was yelling DUNCAN...IDAHO! at everyone.

Release date

Spice is life. Denis Villeneuve's DUNE, starring everyone who's anyone in Hollywood, drops Nov. 20, 2020 and will be available in IMAX & 3D.

— Exhibitor Relations Co. (@ERCboxoffice) February 16, 2019

ok now that they got the cast out of the way, who's doing the production design?

Cast not quite out of the way yet! This is a very inspired call: Dastmalchian playing Piter de Vries.

https://deadline.com/2019/02/legendary-dune-david-dastmalchian-1202560175/

Can he out-Dourif Dourif though?

Impossible on the one hand, but on the other, Dastmalchian is a perfect actor to cast in something that requires a Brad Dourif-level of performance, so I'm completely good with this.

He can only aspire to a line reading as good as "Their BODies must NEVer be FOUND" with accompanying hand gestures.

no Feyd Rautha, huh

Oh he'll be cast at some point.

well sure it's hard to come up w/ someone Chalamet can defeat in a duel

BTW answering an earlier question:

ok now that they got the cast out of the way, who's doing the production design?

If IMDB is accurate, that'll be Patrice Vermette, who worked with Villeneuve on Sicario and Arrival but not Blade Runner 2049.

Nice short interview with two of the younger Sisters:

https://gizmodo.com/dune-prophecy-episode-2-spoiler-interview-aoife-hinds-faoileann-cunningham-2000528804

Very Game of Thrones “can we fit some boobs into this exposition” episode

it's that winning HBO fomula

*formula

lol i was thinking the same thing

also i was like “they snort stuff in Dune now?”

Doing rails of spice off a stripper’s butt

Dune: Anora

Heeeeeeey it’s Atia of the Julii

The CGI in that last scene was shockingly bad for a big budget production.

Seen worse. Anyway this was — no pun intended — a very good slow burn of an episode.

Air jail, not just for bad dachsunds anymore

How to hang around.

I appreciate how this being a six episode season means nothing has really dragged and we’re almost done, even while having space to introduce a new character to immediately complicate things further.

Second season happening!

https://tvline.com/news/dune-prophecy-renewed-season-2-hbo-1235390594/

streets are saying robert pattinson is in talks for scytale...

Hmm, interesting choice if so! Thinly sourced report:

https://deadline.com/2025/04/dune-3-rob-pattinson-1236363305/

We allegedly have Leto II and Ghanima:

https://deadline.com/2025/06/dune-3-casts-nakoa-wolf-momoa-ida-brooke-1236436045/

"Son of mine."

"Yes, my charismatic father?"

"See, I'll be playing me all over again but you'll be playing a kid who eventually becomes a giant worm."

"...okay."

Anyway, let’s get Duned:

https://variety.com/2025/film/news/dune-3-title-imax-cameras-1236448953/