It’s a bit dismissive to look past every film being released over the next year-plus and only care about Denis Villeneuve’s “Dune,” but it’s very difficult to think that there’s another film in 2020 that could excite me more than what the “Blade Runner 2049” director is working on now. And thankfully, according to one of the actors involved in “Dune,” Villeneuve is being given all the freedom he needs to make a great film.
With incredible actors such as Timothée Chalamet, Josh Brolin, Javier Bardem, Oscar Isaac, Rebecca Ferguson, Charlotte Rampling, and Stellan Skarsgård, the cast alone is worth the price of admission for “Dune.” However, in a new interview with Collider, Stellan Skarsgård says that it’s going to be the personal touch that Villeneuve adds to “Dune” that is going to make the film truly special.
“I’ve always wanted to work with [Villeneuve] partly because he’s such a wonderful man, but also because he’s a brilliant director,” said Skarsgård. “It’s fun when you get one of those big sci-fi movies and you know it’s going to be directed by a true filmmaker.”
He continued, “It’s not going to be directed by the studio. It seemed like they were giving him pretty free hands. And you have to because his personal stamp on the film is paramount for the success of it.”
When asked what exactly makes Villeneuve such a great fit for “Dune,” the actor complimented a variety of things about the filmmaker, and said, “What he’s really good at is creating this strange atmosphere with his imagery and this cinematic poetry that is his trademark and that will add so much richness to the pretty simple story.”
A “pretty simple story?” Are we talking about the same “Dune?” The one written by Frank Herbert?
Sure, the basic premise of the story is very easy to understand, as it follows a young guy that is set to inherit control of a planet that is the only location of the universe’s most valuable resource, with all the political backstabbing and corruption that come with a story such as this. But what makes “Dune” so much more than just a simple story is the worldbuilding that Herbert does in the novel, combined with the philosophical messages of the story.
Hopefully, Skarsgård is just talking a bit conservatively about the story of the film. I’m not saying that Villeneuve has to spend hours adapting every word of the novel, but what makes the filmmaker such an exciting person to bring “Dune” to life again is that he has a great way of making beautiful films that have much deeper meanings.
Either way, it’s great to hear that Villeneuve is being left to his own devices to bring “Dune” to the big screen. Obviously, with a budget on par with other massive epics, you can’t help but assume that the studio will be involved in a lot of ways. But if Skarsgård is correct and the filmmaker is allowed to do his own thing, we could be on the verge of seeing Herbert’s classic done right.
“Dune” will arrive in theaters on December 18.
