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DUNE movie & TV rights obtained by Legendary

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Wollan

Member
This is Great. Very happy that we're seeing movement on this IP again and now it's all under a single focused umbrella. The potential here is huge.
http://www.aintitcool.com/node/76781

Shortly told for the uninvited: read the books (the first four), see the 1984 David Lynch movie and the documentary Jodorowsky's Dune : Dune is Dune but if surface comparisons are to be made then one could say it's Sci-fi Game of Thrones but with the great strengths of the aforementioned genre.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dune_(novel)
Dune is a 1965 epic science fiction novel by American author Frank Herbert. It tied with Roger Zelazny's This Immortal for the Hugo Award in 1966,[3] and it won the inaugural Nebula Award for Best Novel.[4] It is the first installment of the Dune saga, and in 2003 was cited as the world's best-selling science fiction novel.[5][6]

Set in the distant future amidst a feudal interstellar society in which noble houses, in control of individual planets, owe allegiance to the Padishah Emperor, Dune tells the story of young Paul Atreides, whose noble family accepts the stewardship of the desert planet Arrakis. As this planet is the only source of the "spice" melange, the most important and valuable substance in the universe, control of Arrakis is a coveted — and dangerous — undertaking. The story explores the multi-layered interactions of politics, religion, ecology, technology, and human emotion, as the forces of the empire confront each other in a struggle for the control of Arrakis and its "spice".[7]

dune-sand-worm.jpg


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El Topo

Member
Legendary? No thanks. After the Lynch movie and the TV miniseries I'm not sure you can really do the books justice anyway.
 
You would need some serious budget to bring this movie to life on the big screen.

From what I can remember it was Pauls story then under that an asstonne of nuance and politics both on planet and in space.

You'd either need a a 4 hour movie or some cuttage of certain parts of the book when adapting.

Buy Hyperion and give that a try instead
 

Kayhan

Member
I can only see Hyperion working as a TV series. Theres too much to cover in one movie.

I would love to see a HBO Hyperion TV series if they would give it the resources of shows like Game of Thrones and Westworld. And if they stay true to the books.
 

Wollan

Member
I would argue that Dune is a very different case due to the story and its structure. We've seen several attempts at Dune and even the miniseries was decent at best.
We are living in a different world now though with major actors and enormous budgets going for series. With streaming the traditional 'TV series' is no longer the stepchild that it once was. I think the level of attention given to Dune will be quite elevated in a post Game of Thrones industry.

edit:
Ahh... I did use search. My bad. I will double check with Google Search going forward.
 

Wollan

Member
And the game rights?
With epic RPG in mind I'm not sure who would fit. The usual suspects:
Bethesda (Elder Scrolls / Fallout): Technically underwhelming, story/dialog subpar. Large worlds and lots of content w/good gameplay.
Kojima Productions: Would be a perfect fit if Hideo wasn't creating his own vision. The open world of MGS5 & sharp gameplay combined with Kojima artistery & crazy ideas.
CD Project (The Witcher): Beautiful open world with sharp dialog. Knows how to adapt a book series. Gameplay is so so but they are a mere step away. Busy with Cyberpunk 2017.
 
With epic RPG in mind I'm not sure who would fit. The usual suspects:
Bethesda (Elder Scrolls / Fallout): Technically underwhelming, story/dialog subpar. Large worlds and lots of content w/good gameplay.
Kojima Productions: Would be a perfect fit if Hideo wasn't creating his own vision. The open world of MGS5 & sharp gameplay combined with Kojima artistery & crazy ideas.
CD Project (The Witcher): Beautiful open world with sharp dialog. Knows how to adapt a book series. Gameplay is so so but they are a mere step away. Busy with Cyberpunk 2017.

Missing the genre where we already knows the ip works great. Choose Harkonnen, Sardukar, Atreides, Fremen, etc. in a strategy game. Current big shots of the genre being:

Creative Assembly (SEGA)
Firaxis (2K Games)
Relic (SEGA)
Paradox Development Studio (Paradox Interactive)
 

Krejlooc

Banned
With epic RPG in mind I'm not sure who would fit. The usual suspects:
Bethesda (Elder Scrolls / Fallout): Technically underwhelming, story/dialog subpar. Large worlds and lots of content w/good gameplay.
Kojima Productions: Would be a perfect fit if Hideo wasn't creating his own vision. The open world of MGS5 & sharp gameplay combined with Kojima artistery & crazy ideas.
CD Project (The Witcher): Beautiful open world with sharp dialog. Knows how to adapt a book series. Gameplay is so so but they are a mere step away. Busy with Cyberpunk 2017.

no, I mean the existing game rights. Did they pick those up as well? As in -- is Legendary the company we have to petition if we want to see Dune and Dune 2 re-released?
 

NekoFever

Member
We are living in a different world now though with major actors and enormous budgets going for series. With streaming the traditional 'TV series' is no longer the stepchild that it once was. I think the level of attention given to Dune will be quite elevated in a post Game of Thrones industry.
TV budgets are still far from enormous, at least compared to movies. Game of Thrones is very expensive and is what? $6 million per episode? So $60 million for ten hours in a season. A major fantasy movie would be in the region of $150 million for 2-3 hours. Game of Thrones looks really good for TV but you can still see where the budget is stretched thin.
 

s_mirage

Member
I would argue that Dune is a very different case due to the story and its structure, not just the mere scope. We've seen several attempts at Dune and even the miniseries was decent at best, even though I liked it.

Totally agree. If they try to squeeze everything intro one film they have to cut too much. However, if they go the multiple film route there's the danger that at least one film will be too talky and slow for a big budget, general audience, series.

I'd like to see a really good, faithful, big budget adaptation, but I'm not at all convinced that we'll get one.
 

Arkanius

Member
I love Dune so much, that I keep wanting to read the rest of the books but then...
Then I'm reminded how much it went to shit.

But I want a faithful adaption of Dune (I) somehow...
 

Timedog

good credit (by proxy)
They said that about LotR.
The LOTR movies were badly edited and lacked seemingly any sort of human emotion or interesting point of view. It was a meandering mess that cared more about the presentation of the adventure than the adventure for adventures sake.

...........

Nobody can beat Lynch's version of Dune. Its the best movie ever made, IMO.
 
The LOTR movies were badly edited and lacked seemingly any sort of human emotion or interesting point of view. It was a meandering mess that cared more about the presentation of the adventure than the adventure for adventures sake.

...........

Nobody can beat Lynch's version of Dune. Its the best movie ever made, IMO.
So much bait in one post. Who will fall for it?
 
For anyone unfamiliar with Dune (is that even possible?), just think of it like this: Dune is one of the primary inspirations for Warhammer 40k, and some of the best and most intriguing ideas in WH40k were lifted straight out of Dune, sometimes not even bothering to change the names of the things they were lifting (such as navigators).
 

Timedog

good credit (by proxy)
Uhh, no. It was full of weird-ass bullshit that was put in there for no reason and was never even hinted at in the book.
Dont care about it being different from the book. Its better than the book. The book is pretty goofy in places.
 
I watched Lynch's Dune again this past week. I can't call it a bad movie. Weird, sometimes, a bit cheesy other times, but overall full of personality and great production design.

I will say that Game of Thrones doesn't stand as a good example of a TV show being able to preserve the nuance of storytelling and intrigue and worldbuilding found in the books on which it's based.

This property has been optioned and passed around so many times over the years that who knows if anything further will come out of it.
 
I will give Lynch's film credit for some awesome production design and a really great cast. It is just everything else that completely falls apart.
 

Wollan

Member
Here's the exact words of Denis Villeneuve (Arrival, Blade Runner 2) from September:
I had been wanting to do sci-fi for a very long time. 2001: A Space Odyssey is a movie that really impressed me as a teenager. And also Blade Runner. And Close Encounters of the Third Kind is also one of my favorites. I’m always looking for sci-fi material, and it’s difficult to find original and strong material that’s not just about weaponry. A longstanding dream of mine is to adapt “Dune,” but it’s a long process to get the rights, and I don’t think I will succeed. Also I would love to write something myself. I have two [sci-fi] projects right now that are in very [early] stages. It’s too early to talk about them.
http://www.slashfilm.com/dune-remake/
 

Stinkles

Clothed, sober, cooperative
Villneuve could lean on the creepily prescient parallels between Paul and Bin Laden.

Scion of an elite family that makes its money on the periphery of the fight for control of a rare commodity buried beneath the sands of an inhospitable desert.

Flung into outcast and leading a religious jihad against the superpowers.

Believes in the righteousness of his golden path even as millions die.

The spice was always a euphemism for oil anyway.
 
Villeneuve would make a fantastic movie about the Dune universe, but maybe not a great adaptation of the book.

The movie would end up more focused on an individual inner conflicts like "my life as a Bene Gesserit" or "The burden of being Muad'Dib", than "The conflicts between all these Space families"
 
Villeneuve would make a fantastic movie about the Dune universe, but maybe not a great adaptation of the book.

The movie would end up more focused on an individual inner conflicts like "my life as a Bene Gesserit" or "The burden of being Muad'Dib", than "The conflicts between all these Space families"

Sounds like a good adaptation of Dune Messiah, then.
 

Stinkles

Clothed, sober, cooperative
I own dune on DVD blu ray hddvd, movie, both series and got my og dune case signed by David Lynch. My wife went to his house one day to interview him and had the foresight to grab the DVD.
 

HStallion

Now what's the next step in your master plan?
Dont care about it being different from the book. Its better than the book. The book is pretty goofy in places.

You can like the Lynch version but its a pale shadow of the book. It gets a lot of things right but if you don't think literally making Paul's name a weapon with magic sonic things then I don't know what to tel you. The movie had a great tone, atmosphere, art design but the story itself was a mess and a lot of things were poorly conceived and implemented.
 

Nikodemos

Member
You can like the Lynch version but its a pale shadow of the book. It gets a lot of things right but if you don't think literally making Paul's name a weapon with magic sonic things then I don't know what to tel you. The movie had a great tone, atmosphere, art design but the story itself was a mess and a lot of things were poorly conceived and implemented.
Seriously. The miniseries got a crapload more stuff right compared to the book. Its only flaw was that it really needed a budget about 20x bigger to do the book(s) justice.

Oh, and James McAvoy was pretty good in Children. Also, Daniela Amavia, Jessica Brooks and Julie Cox were... umm, nice.

P.S.: No series having the News Crier (Ian McNeice) from (HBO's) Rome can be bad.
 

Daingurse

Member
Nice. Been listening to my Dune audiobook again with my step-dad too lol. Hell, was watching the old Syfy miniseries too! Love that fucking book. Would kill for a new Dune tv series.
 
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