The Long road "Dunes", review of the film adaptation
The history of cinema has always been full of secrets and intricacies. As one classic of our time said: "Pull the thread – a tangle will follow it."
In today's story, we will talk about how a harmless experiment by the US Department of Agriculture in the late 50s made Paramount studio bosses nervous in the two thousandth years. And it was like this…
The young science fiction writer Frank Herbert was interested in experiments with artificially bred varieties of herbs, with the help of which it was planned to control the movement of sand dunes. Interested so much that he decided to write an article on this topic. However, instead of an article, he published a novel, which became a landmark event in the fantastic literature of the last century. This novel is "Dune".
Dune was first published by Chilton Books in 1965. The leisurely multi-layered novel immediately captivated the audience, who by that time were already pretty tired of time travel and combat robots. In many ways, this was due to the well-thought-out world of the book. Just imagine – the distant future, the world is ruled by several clans called the Great Houses (Corrino, Atreides and Harkonnen). In this world, people have long abandoned computers and robots – it happened after the infamous uprising of machines. Instead, they began to develop thinking and psychic abilities. In order to help develop them, people began to use a substance called Spice or spice. In the entire universe, spice is mined only on one planet – on Arrakis (also known as Dune), so whoever owns Arrakis owns the world. This is what served as the beginning of the novel.
According to the plot, Emperor Shaddam IV transferred the rights to the planet Arrakis to Duke Leto Atreides. The former owners, the House of Harkonnen, did not like it very much, so it was decided to carry out a military coup. Enlisting the not very secret support of the emperor, Vladimir Harkonnen kills Duke Leto and returns to power on Arrakis. The duke's son and concubine managed to escape. House Atreides has fallen. But, as it is easy to guess, not forever. Next, readers will get acquainted with the local population of Dune, with ancient prophecies and genetic programs for the removal of Superman from the Bene Gesserit – an intergalactic regilio-political organization, as well as a love line and, of course, the return of power to the rightful heir.
There is a joke that if John Tolkien had written fiction, not fantasy, he would have written "Dune" - that's how epic this work is!
But seriously, only a few can boast of such a scale – Asimov with his "Academy" and Simmons with his "Hyperion". Therefore, there is absolutely nothing surprising that studio bosses immediately pounced on this tasty piece of pie. And the beginning was laid in the now distant 1971. Then the director was supposed to be David Lin, who shot the wonderful film "Lawrence of Arabia". However, something did not work out and the rights to the tape were transferred to other people, and the Chilean Alejandro Jodorovsky was chosen as the director. That's really who was ready to shoot on no less a scale than the events described in the book! Artists such as Mobius, Giger and Dali were involved in the development (the latter, by the way, as an actor – Salvador had to play the role of a mercenary emperor). The cast included no less famous names – Orson Welles, Alain Delon, Geraldine Chaplin and even rocker Mick Jagger. In addition, it was decided that the timing of the painting would take about 10 hours! Almost complete pre-production was carried out, but for four years no film studio dared to finance these Napoleonic plans. The rights to the film adaptation had to be resold again, and all the developments went to the table (although some later surfaced when creating the franchise about Strangers and Luc Besson's tape "The Fifth Element").
In 1975, the rights were acquired by the legendary producer Dino De Laurentiis ("Halloween", "The Sinister Dead", "Conan" with Schwartz, etc.), whose daughter Rafaella was a big fan of this book. The first candidate for the role of director was Ridley Scott, famous by that time for the paintings "Duelists" and "Alien". The development of the project began, but almost immediately ended – Scott dropped out of the project after the tragic death of his brother. De Laurentiis again began to look for a suitable director. Now he was also spurred on by the fact that the film "Star Wars: A New Hope", using some elements of F. Herbert's "Dune", broke a big box office. De Laurentiis' choice fell on Lynch. It is noteworthy that the director of "Elephant Man" and "Eraser Head" did not immediately accept the offer of the famous producer. But, nevertheless, I accepted. The success of the same "Star Wars" helped to find people who agreed to finance a new Lynch tape. In the future, the bulk of these finances were spent on large-scale scenery in Mexico (the same Rafaella De Laurentiis chose the location for filming) and the most modern special effects. However, even despite this, and the fact that world–class stars - Jurgen Prokhnou, Max von Sydow, Sting and De Laurentiis' wife Silvana Mangano - took part in the filming of the film, David Lynch's "Dune" failed at the box office, and the developments of the sequels were consigned to oblivion. The "Dune" was forgotten for 16 years.
In 2000, a television production of the novel, directed by John Harrison, unexpectedly appeared (the series "Tales from the Dark Side" and "Tales from the Crypt"). This film adaptation of the novel was closer to the original, but when viewing it, there was a lack of budget. Harrison's mini-series was a success, and a sequel, Children of Dune, based on the second and third books of the Dune cycle, was soon filmed. The sequel was expected to be less successful due to noticeable discrepancies with the original source. A smaller budget also contributed to this. But it didn't matter anymore, because the studio bosses remembered about this novel and started talking about a new film show…
At the end of 2007, Paramount (which by that time had become the owner of the rights to the film adaptation) announced its decision to shoot a full-length film about the Dune universe. Peter Berg, who directed Hancock, was appointed director. It was planned to start production immediately, but the project was frozen due to a strike of the screenwriters. A little later, the screenwriter was found – he became an unknown Josh Zetumer, who would later be destined to write the script for the remake of "Robocop". By the time the script suits producers Kevin Mischer ("The Scorpion King"), Brian Herbert (son of F.Herbert) and Kevin Anderson, was ready, Peter Berg was already loaded with other projects. He left the director's chair, forcing studio bosses to urgently look for a replacement. For some time, Neil Blomkamp ("District No. 9", "A Robot named Chappie") and Neil Marshall (the series "The World of the Wild West" and "Hannibal", the film "Dog Warriors") were among the contenders, but a year later Paramount named Pierre Morel as the new director - director "From Paris with love" and "Hostages". The script of Zetumer Morel was not satisfied, so Chase Palmer was hired to polish it – another unknown screenwriter who lit up on working with another long–term project - the film adaptation of "It" based on the novel by Stephen King. The script was almost ready when Pierre Morel refused the director's chair, preferring to remain as an executive producer. The new film adaptation of "Dune" is hanging in the air again.
But another landmark film saw the world – the documentary "The Dune of Khodorovsky". It presented many developments, as well as told the story of working on a failed project. This event created a resonance that led to the proposal of Israeli director Ari Folman to shoot an animated version of "Dune" based on drafts and developments of Khodorovsky. By that time, Folman had already directed a good film adaptation of Stanislav Lem's works "Congress" and his intentions were serious – Ari found the email address of Khodorovsky. No one else has heard about this project…
2017. The rights to the film adaptation of the novel were bought by Legendary studio. The list of producers includes all the same people plus Richard Rubenstein, who had a hand in creating the TV shows "Dunes". The screenwriter is still the same Chase Palmer. But we need a director. And he was found – Canadian Denis Villeneuve. His candidacy was accepted in the wake of the success of Arrival and positive reviews after a test viewing of Blade Runner 2049, the sequel to Ridley Scott's cult film. There are also suspicions that it is the initial developments of Ridley Scott's "Dune" that will be used when shooting Villeneuve's painting. So far, these are just rumors, but, as they say, what is Scott not joking about?
The premiere date has not yet been announced, but the selection of actors for the new film adaptation will begin soon. Whether we will be destined to see her or the Canadian will repeat the fate of his predecessors is unknown. We just have to be content with the existing film adaptations, reread Frank Herbert's books and hope that someday "Dune" will find a decent film adaptation. Mostbet istənilən oyunçunun istəklərini təmin edəcək. Mostbet Casino, qazanmaq şansınızı artıran maraqlı bonuslar və promosyonlar təklif edir. Müasir dizayn və intuitiv interfeys oyunu asan və rahat edir mosbet qabaqcıl şifrələmə texnologiyasından istifadə edərək oyunçuların məlumatlarının təhlükəsizliyini və məxfiliyini təmin edir. Ani ödənişlər və peşəkar müştəri dəstəyi ilə Mostbet həyəcanverici onlayn qumar təcrübəsi axtaranlar üçün mükəmməl yerdir.
