Frank Herbert’s Dune is one of the great sci-fi stories, but it hasn’t had a great screen adaptation. According to Frank’s son Brian, one is coming.
Frank Herbert’s Dune, originally published in 1965, is one of the most popular, influential science fiction stories of the last century, but despite a couple of tries, it’s never had a great screen adaptation. With Arrival director Denis Villeneuve now trying his hand at it, hopes are high that his version will succeed where others have fallen a little short.
If you ask Frank Herbert’s son Brian, who has been writing Dune prequel and sequel novels alongside author Kevin J. Anderson since the late ’90s, the new movie will more than live up to expectations. “I was very impressed by the trailer, and I was thrilled to actually be on the movie set in Budapest last year, where my wife and I watched the filming of several scenes,” he told Inverse. “This is a really big movie, a major project that will forever be considered THE definitive film adaptation of Frank Herbert’s classic novel. Fans are going to love this movie. Denis Villeneuve is the perfect director to do Dune.”
That is a ringing endorsement from someone who has the series’ best interests at heart. And while they’ve never been as explosively popular as Frank Herbert’s original, the Dune prequel and sequel books have been big successes, with Anderson and Brian Herbert further building out the Dune canon.
Unfortunately, Brian can’t reveal whether Villeneuve’s new movie takes any inspiration from any of the stuff he and Anderson have come up with over the years. “This movie is called Dune, and is following what Frank Herbert laid out,” he said, careful not to say anything out of turn. “Come on! You know we can’t reveal what is in the movie! Nice try, though.”
Dune has a lot of sequels, the first five written by Frank Herbert himself before his passing in 1986. The first book from Brian and Kevin came in 1999: Dune: House Atreides tells the story of what happened in the year’s before the 1965 book, focusing on the rise of a young Duke Leto Atreides; the ambitious Shaddam Corrino, son of Emperor Elrood; and a young runaway slave named Duncan Idaho, all of whom play a big part in the original story.
Just the other day, BOOM! Studios released a comic book version of Dune: House Atreides, so if you’re upset about Villeneuve’s movie being pushed back into October of next year, this could help ease the transition.
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