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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
Via the good people at io9, my attention was drawn this morning to news that Dune is coming back to the silver screen. This is probably old news to many of you; we've known for a while that the man at the helm is Denis Villeneuve, fresh off Blade Runner 2049 (a worthy sequel to most everyone's favorite futuristic film noir), and just this week Deadline pegged a certain young Hollywood heartthrob for Atreides.
The latest news, however, is that Brian Herbert—son of Dune author Frank Herbert and an author in his own right—revealed that the first script will only focus on the first half of the novel. This confirms an earlier report that Villeneuve plans to adapt the book across two movies.
Herbert's epic sci-fi novel is set far off in the future—about 20,000 years from now—and it tells the story of an intergalactic power struggle between different noble houses to control a substance called melange, which makes interstellar travel possible. (That's massively underselling things, but you try summarizing a 400-page novel in one sentence.) Published in 1965, it has gone on to have a huge influence in popular culture; here at Ars, our favorite descendants are Fatboy Slim's "Weapon of Choice" and the frequent references to the litany of fear by Peter Puppy in the Earthworm Jim cartoons. (The recreation of Dune using gummy worms gets a notable mention.)
[...] By now you may have decided I am an uncritical viewer of all things Dune, so you may not be surprised to know that I am greatly looking forward to see what Villeneuve does with the story. Again, I think he did a bang-up job with a follow-on to Blade Runner, but it's true there's not much similarity between the two franchises other than the fact that they both take place in the future. Other Dune watchers are less confident—upon the news that Kevin J. Anderson (of Star Wars novels fame) was collaborating with Brian Herbert, Ars editor Lee Hutchinson told me, "I can't believe this is going to end in anything other than a nuclear explosion of human excrement."
[...] Legendary (the company behind The Dark Knight and Interstellar) bought rights to Dune about two years ago, but for now there's no firm timetable for the first film.
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(Score: 5, Insightful) by jmorris on Saturday July 28 2018, @10:23PM
It is amazing how Hollywood keeps missing the point on Science Fiction despite so much evidence. Special effects can improve a good story but are insufficient alone. On the other hand a good story will sell quite well with spartan effects. Look how long ST:TOS and the old Dr. Who have been selling. But Hollywood, and not just with Science Fiction, considers the script an afterthought after they have done the "deals", nailed down the "talent" (and now we know they nailed the talent in more ways than one), found the best cinematographer and director they can get, only then will they hire some second rate screenwriters to hammer out a first cut of a script which everyone involved will rewrite endlessly right up to the day they ship a final print and then keep going for a "Special Edition DVD Release." Look how many movies don't even have an ending in mind until they get to the point where they have to actually film one, then they shoot several and decide on one in the editing bay. .. if they don't spin again and do reshoots.
The best and brightest at work. They have to be right? Hollywood wouldn't just hand a hundred plus million to some second rate hack, right? It couldn't be they are mostly middling talents who get the jobs through nepotism and being willing to blow a producer.