David Lynch regrets making his Dune movie: "I died a death"

David Lynch is one of the most unique filmmakers working in the industry. Famous for his surreal, mind-bending style, Lynch is best known for making Twin Peaks. Before that, he tried his hand at developing Frank Herbert's sci-fi epic Dune into a live-action movie, but his attempt was panned by critics and sunk at the box office.

Dune (1984) was a poorly constructed mess, with horrendously bad monologues and special effects that were even considered bad at the time. The movie grossed just over $30 million on an estimated budget of $40–42 million.

As the years have passed, Lynch has voiced his dissatisfaction with the movie. Most recently, when asked about which of his films offered him the most lessons on filmmaking, he cited Dune. But he affirms that the poor result wasn't completely his fault. In hindsight, he was naive about the terms in his contract.

“My film Dune, I knew already one should have final cut before signing on to do a film,” he said on the NPR podcast Wild Card. “But for some reason, I thought everything would be OK, and I didn’t put final cut in my contract. And as it turned out, Dune wasn’t the film I wanted to make, because I didn’t have a final say."

"So that’s a lesson I knew even before, but now there’s no way. Why would anyone work for three years on something that wasn’t yours? Why? Why do that? Why? I died a death. And it was all my fault for not knowing to put that in the contract."

Dune wasn't a complete disaster; it did bear fruit for Lynch in other ways. For instance, Kyle MacLachlan, who played Paul Atreides, went on to continue working with Lynch in Twin Peaks, one of the most successful TV shows of its time. And the movie went on to have a cult following.

Of course, nowadays Dune is all the rage. Denis Villeneuve's Dune movies are revered and successful, and there's more to come. It feels like the franchise is just beginning.

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