If you're looking for a great documentary on how films are almost made and then not, check out Jodorowsky's Dune.

Essentially, the documentary follows experimental filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky's attempts to try and adapt Frank Herbert's seminal sci-fi epic, Dune. How? By hiring some of the most well-known designers, musicians and actors to make what would have been a genre-defining film.

Really. It would have been one of those films that would have likely changed the entire course of mainstream films, primarily because so many of the people involved on it went off to do other work - H.R. Giger, for example, worked on Dune and was hired by Ridley Scott to design the alien from Alien on the back of his work for it.

David Lynch eventually took a stab at it and what followed is considered a sort of glorious mess, with Sting in a metal thong and Kyle MacLachlan doing karate moves. It got weird, basically.

Since then, there's been several attempts to get another adaptation of Dune off the ground, but now it appears that Legendary Pictures has decided to give it another lash and has hired none other than office favourite Denis Villeneuve to direct.

You'll recall that Villeneuve directed 2015's excellent crime thriller Sicario and is currently working on a small little film called Blade Runner: 2049 with two relatively unknown actors called Harrison Ford and Ryan Gosling. Going by the statement released by Brian Herbert, the son of the author who now manages the estate and rights of the franchise, Legendary is looking to turn Dune into a film series and Denis Villeneuve's film will be the first in that series.

It's exciting stuff, as Dune is one of those properties that's never had its potential fully realised. If anyone can do it, it's Denis Villeneuve. He's got the experience now with working on a major studio tentpole and his ability to make intelligent, thoughtful sci-fi is borne out in Arrival.

We couldn't think of a better person to take on the story, quite frankly. Here's hoping it works out.

 

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