New Dune movie

[Magical Realist]

https://screenrant.com/dune-movie-2020-t...date-news/

"Frank Herbert's 1965 novel Dune is widely considered one of the greatest science-fiction novels ever written, and now it's set for a new movie adaptation from Blade Runner 2049 director Denis Villeneuve.

Various directors tried and failed to tackle the book, with the most famous unmade version being that of cult director Alejandro Jodorowsky. His ambitious plans were so enormous - including casting Salvador Dalí and Orson Welles, getting Pink Floyd to do the soundtrack and having legendary illustrator Moebius design the film - that a documentary was made about the project. When that fell through, producer Dino De Laurentiis hired a young David Lynch, fresh from his Oscar-nominated work in The Elephant Man. The final result was widely slammed, although it has its bright moments, and Lynch would later distance himself from the film, saying his artistic vision had been curtailed.

The Sci-Fi Channel would make a miniseries of the novel in 2000 and other directors would attempt to get a new film into production (both Peter Berg (Battleship) and Pierre Morel (Taken) were signed on as directors at various points in time) but to no avail. However, in November 2016, it was revealed that Legendary Entertainment had required the rights to Dune, and the following month, it was announced that Denis Villeneuve would direct the project. Not much has been revealed since then, but here is everything you need to know about the upcoming Dune movie. We’ll keep this updated as new stories break..."

[Syne]

Nothing new from what I read about it several months ago. Fingers crossed.

Personally, I like the Lynch version (as that got me to read the books in the first place), but I'd love to see it updated with modern special effects.

[C C]

. . . The Sci-Fi Channel would make a miniseries of the novel in 2000...

Might be better to take another stab at that (as a multiple season series) using HBO standards rather than Syfy's. The complexities of a single 412-page book itself would receive better justice as a high-quality ten episodes (or even twenty if stretched over two years) rather than a restricted, three hour film. The five sequels could carry it into either multiple seasons or increments. (Though admittedly, the unofficial HBO requirement that characters must utter at least one variation of the F-word _X_ number of times during a five minute period, regardless of the situation, could get adolescently monotonous for some viewers. Like listening to that neighbor who says "uh" or "you know" endlessly as a pause filler during routine conversations.)

Too bad Herbert is long dead. As George R. R. Martin stated below about the decisions for his own literary franchise -- if the first film flops, that's it for the rest.

Even when an opening work is a success as a film -- not to mention becoming a classic -- there's no guarantee of the others following. It's certainly not adult speculative fiction, but Frank Baum did write circa 14 Oz books. But largely it was vastly inferior, faux attempts at sequels over the decades that followed (cartoons some), which weren't part of the original canon. (For a good while it was literally as if the industry was completely ignorant of Baum having written more installments.)

Why George R R Martin said no to a "Game of Thrones" movie for 15 years:

George R. R. Martin has discussed why he held out for a Game of Thrones TV series for over a decade, saying he didn't want his novels to go the same way in adaptation as Tolkein's "Lord of the Rings".

In spite of sacks of cash being thrown at him, the author was simply not willing to compromise his books by having huge sections of them removed to fit a film narrative. "It took Peter Jackson three movies to make Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, and he still had to cut things," Martin told Melvyn Bragg during an interview for The South Bank Show.

"It would take three movies for *A Storm of Swords* alone! And if you figure like two movies for *A Game of Thrones*, and two for *A Clash of Kings*, you're already up to seven movies and you're halfway through the series. Nobody's going to commit to that, and, of course, they didn't commit to that."

Martin refused to cave to pressure, and did not want to see his series manipulated into a Jon Snow hero story with a few supporting characters. [...] "I didn't need the money so I had the power to say the sexiest word in Hollywood – 'No'."

[...] George went on to say that filmmakers suggested to him that if the first film was a hit then sequels would follow. However, the writer cited Philip Pullman's wildly successful *His Dark Materials* book series, which only saw one movie being made and any potential followups shelved due to its lack of success at the box office.

It appears that the writer made the right choice by opting for a TV adaptation and foregoing Hollywood...

https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/enter...92677.html

https://www.express.co.uk/showbiz/tv-rad...Winter-HBO

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