Jan 2010 – ‘Dune’ remake back on track with director Pierre Morel (EW/Hollywood Insider)

The studio has hired Taken helmer Pierre Morel to oversee the movie. Paramount is currently looking for a new writer to incorporate Morel’s vision of the project into the original draft by Quantum of Solace scribe Josh Zetumer.

http://hollywoodinsider.ew.com/2010/01/04/dune-remake/

It took them long enough . Morel, like Berg, is very much an action director with only a handful of films behind him. I wonder who exactly is pushing the film in this direction? The producers are the same ones who gave us the longer, more literary and perhaps ‘pedestrian’ miniseries – Does Paramount want another Transformers or Star Trek? They definitely brought in some cash – are they the template?

Jan 2010 – ‘Dune’ Adaptation Will Be ‘Very Respectful To The Original Novel,’ Pierre Morel Says (MTV Movie Blog)

Morel: “I’ve been a fan of that book – because I will not refer to the movie – I’ve been a fan of the book since I was a teenager.“

“I’m trying to be very respectful to the original novel, but it’s a challenge; there’s a lot of expectation, all the readers will be waiting for me with their shotguns. All the non-readers will also be waiting for us, because it’s such a complex, rich novel and you have to make it accessible to those who have not read the book. So, it’s a tough challenge but I’m very excited about that.”

http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2010/01/11/exclusive-dune-adaptation-will-be-very-respectful-to-the-original-novel-pierre-morel-says/

So far so good. Faithful might have a more positive choice of words, but with the amount of cash being poured into this and failure of the 1984 film we should expect a certain amount of adaptation. The film industry, especially the blockbuster end of things, doesn’t like risks.

Jan 2010 – ‘Dune’ Director Explains Plans For ‘Faster’ Movie, Better Representations Of Clothes And Tech (MTV Movie Blog)

Morel: “[David Lynch's 1984 movie] was interesting, but not what we [fans] expected. And I thought I’d give it a chance, try to do this, make it faster and more modern. I think that now, in 2010, we have the technology to achieve much more than David could do twenty-five years ago. I think it will be cool to try something different.”

[Elaborating on his plan for the  concept design] “We’ll try to figure out what things may look like 10,000 years from now; it’s all about reconfiguring the entire universe. Everything is going to be very different than [it is] now, and we know from the book that there’s no more computers, no thinking machines. So a lot of the technology is going to be different. We’ll be working with design concepts, futurists and scientists who will give us a vision of how technology may evolve with certain conditions. That might lead us to another vision of the future – it’s not David Lynch’s vision, it’s not ours either, but in-between.”

http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2010/01/13/exclusive-dune-director-explains-plans-for-faster-movie-better-representations-of-clothes-and-tech/

Faster… yes they are still going down the action route. Faithful and action packed. Should be interesting.

Now, where he goes next is weird. I get that he’s trying to distance himself from Lynch’s Dune – it failed and is a bit of a joke really. But, the visual design was one of the things it did right. Dune is a feudal society, so the design takes cues from Renaissance (feudal ) Italy – it’s a visual cue, a piece of shorthand that allows the director to convey and reinforce the feudalism without having to spell it out. Dune should be a unique vision of a distant future, but modern isn’t really a vibe I get from Dune.

But on a certain level he is saying the right things again – the technology we use to design our objects and buildings influences how they look. Architectural modelmakers influenced how buildings looked when they started to use laser-cut perspex. So it follows that in Dune things won’t look like they’ve been designed in the computer. How that tallies with modern… who knows.