As promised by director Pierre Morel last week, the screenwriter for his new adaptation of “Dune” was announced today to be relative newcomer Chase Palmer. According to his IMDB page, Palmer only has two indie shorts and a gestating comedic thriller about Alfred Hitchcock in the works to his credit. Though Morel claimed that former director Peter Berg and writer Josh Zetumer’s (the now seemingly jettisoned “Bourne 4” script) script would be thrown out, THR claims that Morel’s ideas will be fit into ideas from the previous draft. Morel reportedly wants to stick close to the source material of Frank Herbert’s novel, unlike David Lynch’s moody, 1984 disasterpiece adaptation of the novel.
Interestingly enough, “Shutter Island” screenwriter Læta Kalogridis, speaking with THR, was once on tap to write Morel’s adaptation, but got caught up in writing the script for the upcoming live-action adaptation of the popular ’90s cyberpunk anime “Ghost In The Shell.”
Interesting choice. Number 13 is a tight little script – a personal favorite – but nowhere near Dune's complexity. He must have had a good take on the material.