Denis Villeneuve confirms that DUNE project is moving forwards

Last year it was confirmed that Arrival and Blade Runner 2049 director Denis Villeneuve was developing a fresh film adaptation of Frank Herbert's seminal 1965 SF novel Dune. Villeneuve indicated he might take a break or even direct a smaller movie before tackling another SF monster, but a new interview this week confirms that Dune is moving forwards (but not formally greenlit yet).

Frequent Villeneuve collaborator Peter Konig's take on sandworms.

At the moment Eric Roth (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Forrest Gump) has written a script and that's what's being developed at present. Only Dune itself is being adapted, with the five canonical sequel novels off the table unless the first movie is a major success.

There are also discussions going about making one film or splitting the story across two movies. David Lynch's 1984 adaptation of the book struggled to contain the whole story in two hours, with vast amounts of material from the book cut and more material filmed but edited out.

Villeneuve admits to being fascinated by Alejandro Jodorowsky's unfilmed version of Dune, but will not be taking any inspiration from that version or any of the filmed versions of the movie. This will be a completely new take on the source material.

The new film version is being financed by Legendary Entertainment. I wouldn't expect it before late 2020 at the earliest.