'Dune: Prophecy' and the problem with expanding the Dune universe

Anticipation for Denis Villeneuve’s upcoming movie Dune: Part Two is as heavy in the air as spice is on the winds of Arrakis. The epic follow-up to 2021’s Dune is tracking to be this year’s first financial triumph, its projected $65 million opening weekend take jolting a domestic box office that has been quiet through the first couple months of 2024. Those fortunate enough to have already seen the film have only amplified that excitement, with famed filmmaker Christopher Nolan lauding the feature’s imagery, scope, and general quality while comparing it to The Empire Strikes Back.

Comparisons between Dune and Star Wars are not only natural, but common given that the two seminal works of space fantasy are intrinsically linked, the latter franchise borrowing many of its aesthetic and thematic motifs from the former. Star Wars has gone on to become the more mainstream property of the two, which is understandable given its focus on an approachable morality tale as opposed to an addictive cinnamon-flavored drug. The Star Wars films have earned billions of dollars at the worldwide box office, its scope and universe vastly expanding through television series, all-age novels, and even theme park lands.

Warner Bros. Discovery and Legendary Entertainment will attempt to replicate the success of the expanding Star Wars universe with Dune: Prophecy, a Max series tangentially related to the events of the Dune films. The streaming program—which has been in development, in some form, since 2019—is set 10,000 years before Paul Atreides’ birth and will center on the foundation of the Bene Gesserit, the mysterious political organization that Paul’s mother, Lady Jessica, ultimately joins.

The studios’ desire to expand the breadth of the Dune universe is logical given the franchise’s popularity and the ever-growing necessity for streaming content in today’s hyper-competitive market. Dune, at this point, is a proven critical and commercial entity, but the films are expensive; assuming Prophecy is successful, the small-screen expansion of Dune’s world will allow Warner Bros. and Legendary to continue telling stories within the universe for years to come, profiting off the franchise’s popularity at a more affordable price point.

Though seemingly no more cynical or superfluous than your run-of-the-mill adaptation, reboot, or spin-off, the existence of Dune: Prophecy seems particularly egregious considering the nuance and intent with which author Frank Herbert crafted his original Dune book, released in 1965, and its immediate sequels. While it’s difficult to criticize the motives behind a show’s creation or its general quality without seeing as much as a trailer, the mere existance of a Dune-adjacent TV show suggests a fundamental misunderstanding of the property.

Dune: Prophecy's Troubled Production

Warner Bros. issued a straight-to-series order for Dune: Prophecy (then called Dune: The Sisterhood) in June 2019 as part of what Deadline called Legendary Entertainment’s “comprehensive plans for Dune that also include video games, digital content packages and comic book series.” The show, was set thousands of years before the events of the original novel and was said to be inspired by Sisterhood of Dune, a 2012 novel by Kevin J. Anderson and Frank Herbert's son Brian Herbert that expands upon several elements of Dune lore, including the establishment of the Bene Gesserit.

Initially, the studios tapped Denis Villeneuve to direct the show’s pilot and Jon Spaihts — the writer of both Dune: Part One and Dune: Part Two — to pen the series, ensuring cohesion between the movies and the TV show. That cohesion would quickly fade, with Spaihts relinquishing showrunning duties that November to focus on writing the second Dune film. He remained attached as an executive producer.

Spaihts would be replaced by Diane Ademu-John, then best known as the executive producer and writer of Empire and The Haunting of Bly Manor, in the summer of 2021. In April 2022, respected TV director Johan Renck was tapped to replace Villeneuve behind the camera. Villeneuve, like Spaihts, remained attached as an executive producer.

If you’re already losing track of who is and isn’t attached to this series, buckle up: things only get messier from here.

Emily Watson and Shirley Henderson were cast as Valya and Tula Harkonnen in October 2022, their respective castings suggesting only a loose attachment between the series and the Sisterhood of Dune novel from which it was reportedly adapted (those characters, while present, are significantly younger in the 2012 novel). Subsequent castings indicated the creation of several original characters for the show, suggesting that Dune: The Sisterhood was a mostly original expansion of the Dune world as opposed to a direct novel adaptation. 

Ademu-John exited as showrunner a month after initial castings were announced, leaving former Westworld and Fringe producer Alison Schapker — who at some point had quietly boarded the project as co-showrunner — as sole creative lead. Physical production soon commenced but lost several parties during a “pre-scheduled” February 2023 hiatus; Renck and Henderson departed amid what Deadline described as a “creative overhaul,” with Schapker, pre-hiatus, forced to “make major rewrites on the fly” due to her condensed timeline as sole showrunner.

The creative shift would see a new director hired and several roles recast, the regrouped project recommencing production in July of 2023. The series was officially titled Dune: Prophecy in November of last year, the name announced alongside a Fall 2024 premiere date.

The Issue with expanding the Dune universe

The prospect of expanding the universe of Dune is inherently enticing; the vast sci-fi setting abundant in diverse planets and cultures is, in theory, rich with storytelling possibility. Villeneuve himself even makes attempts to ‘expand’ the world of Dune in his features, giving stronger characterization to minor characters from the novel while making distinct aesthetic and stylistic choices to put his own stamp on the universe.

That said, he does so while expertly adapting the story and message of Herbert’s original novel. Expansion of the world is secondary to telling the story that has allowed Dune to resonate with generations of sci-fi readers.

The world established in the original Dune novel, while endlessly engaging and interesting, is secondary to the book’s themes and messages. While the near-infinite size of the universe is established, the scope of the novel itself is intentionally focused; the book takes place in a vast, nuanced world, but primarily center on one family and one group of people, chronicling their journey on one planet: Arrakis, also known as Dune.

And even as the scope of the story expands throughout the original novel and its immediate sequels, the focus very much remains on the Atreides family, on the Fremen, on Arrakis. Dune is Paul’s story, a cautionary tale about messianic figures that is as pertinent today as it was at the time of its publication.

To tell a story within this world while completely neglecting the existence of Paul and his journey is to completely misunderstand the point of a quintessential piece of science fiction. Dune is not interesting because of its universe; its universe is interesting because of the effectiveness with which Herbert used it to tell an eternal story.

That’s not to say that additional engaging stories cannot be told within this expansive world, but the notion that Warner Bros. and Legendary are attempting the feat at all seems disingenuous. Dune: Prophecy may ultimately prove to be a worthy addition to the Dune universe (I certainly hope it is), but it comes off as a cash-grab, as something two studios are viewing as "their Star Wars," as opposed to something worthy of existing on its own merit.

Criticisms aside, Dune: Prophecy has potential. If the establishment of Dune as an extensive multimedia franchise is inevitable, an original expansion of the universe rooted in the series’ core ideas is likely a better approach than directly adapting all of the books, especially considering the strange territory Herbert’s later novels explore into and the mixed quality of the Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson spin-off books.

The cynical, cash-centric corporate motives behind Dune: Prophecy are no different than those behind any large-budget, IP-based program, and it is, for lack of a better word, cool that Dune fans will soon be able to see more of the world they love on screen. The creatives still attached are talented, and I hope they’ll be able to tell a story that justifies its existence.

That said, the existence of Dune: Prophecy just feels odd. It comes off as a spreadsheet effort as opposed to a creative one, as a series commissioned by Warner Bros. and Legendary to fit with the modern multimedia trend as opposed to a story they were excited about telling for its own sake. I lack Paul’s prescience, so I’m not sure how events will ultimately play out. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

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