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Score another one for the rumor mill: Peter Berg has been confirmed as the director of a new Dune.

Ain't It Cool News floated Berg's name back in October, but the first official word on the subject came from MTV Movies, where Berg was quoted as saying his involvement is "a done deal" and that "if it weren't for the writer's strike, we'd be in it right now."

Fan reaction to the Berg rumor was far from unanimously positive, but skeptics should be happy to hear that he calls himself a "huge fan of the book," and plans on making his Dune "big big big."
i thought the Sci-Fi mini-series' were both damn good, with Children of Dune being better than the first.

i'm excited about the prospect of this new Dune film doing well enough to warrant a few decades of spectacular sequels, thanks to strong writing in the novels, but i'm on the fence about execution. i don't know what to think, really. i mean, i like the ideas in the Lynch film, but i thought the Sci-Fi mini-series was probably the only real way to tackle the material and stay as true as possible to the books, given the extended time allowed a mini-series.

i guess i'll say i hope he can pull it off, and i hope that they pronounced the houses as in the first film rather than the mini-series. people are always calling my band "HARK-a-nun" rather than our preferred har-KO-nin. don't know which is "right" but it's a shout out to our man Lynch.

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TC wrote:i thought the Sci-Fi mini-series' were both damn good.
Wow, first your admiration for Michael Bay films, now this statment. You're losing your street creed pretty quickly around here. ;)
Just cut them up like regular chickens

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Hollywood blahblahblah. As for Rotten Tomatoes, it somehow achieves the accolade of being even more moronic than the imdb.

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Buh bye Berg:
Merrick here...



Initially reported by Pajiba (!?!?) HERE and subsequently confirmed by CHUD (HERE), seems Peter Berg is no longer involved with the DUNE movie we've been hearing about recently.

Pajiba says:

But the big news is, Peter Berg completely dropped the project a few weeks ago — his Film 44 production company backed out, and now Paramount is scrambling to find a new director.

The search, however, has run into two issues: 1) they’re looking for a director who can put the movie together for under $175 million, which sounds manageable, but they don’t want anything resembling the crap effects of the ‘84 film, and 2) they want a director who already has a preexisting passion for the novel and is enthusiastic about the project. Right now, Paramount is shopping the script to two directors: They like Neill Blompkamp (District 9), who has the right vision, but the frontrunner, at the moment, is Neil Marshall (The Descent), who was sent the script early this month. However, despite the enthusiasm of producer, Kevin Misher (Public Enemies), the studio is somewhat tepid on Marshall, uncertain about handing over a $175 million film with franchise potential to a somewhat unknown director whose only hit was the modestly successful The Descent.


Brace for Ratner. He's already at Paramount doing the fourth BEVERLY HILLS COP movie, after all. I'm kidding, I hope.

Meanwhile, Berg is moving forward with his big budget, action heavy production of BATTLESHIP - based on the game of the same name.

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/42884
"I'm like a dog chasing cars, I wouldn't know what to do if I caught one. . . . I'm not a schemer. I just do things."

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This is a dirty tease. All I can think about is how badly I want to see the Chapterhouse/Heretics storylines on screen. Plus, I'd love to see what WETA could do with Leto II.
Ride me a worm, you're a rider...
Walk without rhythm and you're a strider of deserts...

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Beaks here...



EW's Nicole Sperling is reporting that Paramount has hired Pierre Morel, the director of such rambunctious action flicks as DISTRICT B-13, TAKEN and the upcoming (and very goofy looking) FROM PARIS WITH LOVE, to call the shots on the studio's long-in-development adaptation of Frank Herbert's classic sci-fi novel DUNE. Morel will take over for Peter Berg, who left the project last October to focus on the more thematically complex likes of Milton Bradley's BATTLESHIP. Have fun with that.

According to Sperling, Morel is planning to be "very faithful" to Herbert's text. Sounds great. But am I the only one a little troubled by Paramount's preference for directors who specialize in gritty, hand-held action? I certainly understand the studio's desire for a DUNE that looks and feels nothing like the two previous adaptations (Lynch's and Sci-Fi's), but I think I'd like something a bit more classical - more Lean than Greengrass. And maybe that's where Morel is going. It's far too early to tell at the moment.

Paramount is currently looking for a new screenwriter to rework - under Morel's direction - the previous draft by QUANTUM OF SOLACE's Josh Zetumer. What kind of DUNE would you like to see?
http://www.aintitcool.com/node/43532
"I'm like a dog chasing cars, I wouldn't know what to do if I caught one. . . . I'm not a schemer. I just do things."

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EXCLUSIVE: 'Dune' Adaptation Will Be 'Very Respectful To The Original Novel,' Pierre Morel Says
Posted 17 hrs ago by Larry Carroll in Hot Stuff, News


Ever since he landed the role of “Dune” director last week all eyes have been on high-octane “Taken” filmmaker Pierre Morel. On Monday, the red-hot filmmaker called us from Paris and filled MTV News in on his plans for a spice-filled reinvention.

“As a David Lynch movie, I loved it,” he said of the 1984 “Dune” adaptation by the famously trippy “Twin Peaks” filmmaker. “As a ‘Dune’ fan, I was not such a big fan.”

Instead, Morel plans on taking his movie in a very different direction – and back to the roots of the groundbreaking 1965 book that is reportedly the best-selling sci-fi novel of all time.

“Oh my God yes, 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 read that when I was 15, maybe,” Morel said.

“I’ve been reading it over and over again – well, I’m 45 now, so for 30 years. The fun story, actually, is that there were six books in that first series that Frank Herbert wrote. Every time I was going to buy a new one – because I couldn’t buy all six at one time – I was reading the previous ones so I would not forget anything. So, by the time I bought the sixth book I had already read the first one six times! So, I’m a hardcore fan.”

These days, the director is hard at work on “From Paris with Love,” a John Travolta/Jonathan Rhys Meyers action flick that hits theaters February 5th. But he’s finding it hard to not brainstorm about his “Dune” plans.

“[My movie] is all about the first book. I’m trying to be very respectful to the original novel,” he explained. “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.”

Morel hopes that “Dune” will be the next movie he’ll shoot, and that fans will want to re-visit it as many times as he has Herbert’s original novel. Stay tuned, as we’ll have more “Dune” details in the days ahead.
http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2010/01/11/ex ... orel-says/
"I'm like a dog chasing cars, I wouldn't know what to do if I caught one. . . . I'm not a schemer. I just do things."

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MTV wrote:
EXCLUSIVE: 'Dune' Director Explains Plans For 'Faster' Movie, Better Representations Of Clothes And Tech


Recently, we spoke with red-hot “Taken” filmmaker Pierre Morel about his high-profile plans to take over the “Dune” franchise. A die-hard Frank Herbert fan, Morel insisted he was going to be "very respectful" to the original novel. Now, we present the second part of our interview, in which the energetic director reveals specific plans for what how he intends to translate the beloved sci-fi series for wide audience.

“Like many people, I was not fully satisfied with David Lynch’s movie in 1984,” Morel told us in a recent phone interview. “I do respect David, and I think his interpretation and vision 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.”

The first thing Morel plans to tweak, he revealed, are the clothes. “Well, this is supposed to take place 10,000 years from now, so I wonder why people are still dressed like Captain Nemo,” he said with a laugh. “It feels very 19th century to me. I think the [character’s clothes] should be much more modern than that. That’s one thing [I’ll change]; that’s a basic thought.”

Another major tweak, he explained, will involve how the technology of the future is presented. “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,” Morel said. “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.”

“We start the writing process in a couple weeks; there’s so much to sort out,” the filmmaker explained. “[My ‘Dune’] is not a sequel to anything. It’s just a re-interpretation of the original novel.”

Naturally, the complex storyline will take some time to develop before Morel can make it into a “faster and more modern” blockbuster; but if the filmmaker has his way, he’ll get to work on it immediately. “I hope it is the one I’m shooting next, but we’re starting from scratch. We’re re-writing the script, and then we’ll have to figure out the technology [and how it will be depicted], and that’s going to take awhile,” he reasoned. “But best-case scenario, that will be my next one. I’d love for it to be my next one.”

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You know, he probably could've got away with saying effectively the same thing, but without actually mentioning David Lynch enough as to make it look like he's just got a hard-on for trying to prove that he's better. I think that describing it as "faster" though, even from my butt-scratching uncultured film perspective, is one of the signs of a Michaelbayistic-aneurysm.

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I guaranfuckingtee you his version won't be better than Lynch's. I don't care if dude has 25 years of special effects tech and newer, annoying hyper-editing techniques at his disposal.
"I'm like a dog chasing cars, I wouldn't know what to do if I caught one. . . . I'm not a schemer. I just do things."

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Alexhead wrote:I guaranfuckingtee you his version won't be better than Lynch's. I don't care if dude has 25 years of special effects tech and newer, annoying hyper-editing techniques at his disposal.
that's all i can think of when i see those clash of the titans trailers. i'm so fucking sick of that editing style. what's it going to take to get past it?

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TC wrote:
Alexhead wrote:I guaranfuckingtee you his version won't be better than Lynch's. I don't care if dude has 25 years of special effects tech and newer, annoying hyper-editing techniques at his disposal.
that's all i can think of when i see those clash of the titans trailers. i'm so fucking sick of that editing style. what's it going to take to get past it?
I suspect at some point in the next 5-10 years one of these cutcutcut action movie whores is going to make something so aggresively edited that audience members will have strokes in the theaters, then they'll start to pull back. At that time, an angry not-so-young-anymore upstart cinematic genius named T. Clay will debut his latest feature, "Un Poivon De Fume Der Poisson," a 90 minute slow fade single shot of a rotting potato in a dingy kitchen. It will win multiple awards, rake in $500 mil worldwide, and set a new standard for cinematic entertainment.
"I'm like a dog chasing cars, I wouldn't know what to do if I caught one. . . . I'm not a schemer. I just do things."

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TribecaFilm wrote:From Paris with Love Director Pierre Morel Dishes on Dune

Cinematographer turned director Pierre Morel is known for slick, high-speed action/thrillers: Banlieue 13 (which has been remade as District 13: Ultimatum), Liam Neeson-starrer Taken, and now From Paris with Love, which will come out February 5. (Stay tuned for more on From Paris with Love with John Travolta, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, and writer Luc Besson.)

Now Morel is in the beginning stages of a most daunting project, one at which a few have tried their hands with mixed results (i.e. David Lynch and Alejandro Jodorowsky)—adapting Frank Herbert's novel Dune for the big screen. (Joshua Zetumer is writing the screenplay; Morel's usual partner Besson is not involved.) While Morel is sticking to the first novel, it's still an enormous task to establish the Dune universe and compress the original 1965 novel—544 pages in the paperback version available on Amazon—into one movie. I cornered the director after the press conference for From Paris with Love for a moment to talk about this buzzed-about project.

Can you talk a bit about your upcoming adaptation of Dune?
I'm preparing for a long trek in the dunes... We're going to start writing in a couple weeks. It's very early [in the] process.

Do you plan to infuse it with some action?
I don't know. It's all about—I'm a huge Dune fan, a reader, like for 30 years; I read it when I was a teenager. I've read it 10 times maybe, so I want to stay true to the book. Saying that, I also think that there's a lot of scenes that are not described in the books—it's just mentioned, like the bad guys attacking something—and it might make sense to include those in the movie, not just by mentioning it but showing them, and that would maybe [call for] some action scenes, yes. It's not about action. It's not the point. It's not about [making] an action movie. It's just doing Dune. It's like a huge universe thing, and there's such a fanbase, like guys who have been reading that forever—you can't mess with that.

So you're coming at it as a sci-fan fan?
Oh, yeah. Definitely. I'm a big Dune fan.
IGN wrote:Dune's New Messiah
IGN's exclusive chat with the latest director to take on the classic novel.

There have been filmed versions of Dune done before, of course, and there have also been more than a few failed cinematic takes on the classic Frank Herbert sci-fi novel that never got off the ground. But the feeling remains among fans, and apparently Hollywood too, that the tale has yet to be properly, fully adapted.

Enter French director Pierre Morel, who is the latest filmmaker to attempt to take control of Herbert's space-saga like a Fremen riding a sandworm. IGN spoke to Morel today about his plans for the epic, which he's developing for Paramount. Morel, who also directed Taken and has From Paris with Love coming out next week, inherited the project from Peter Berg, who left to make Battleship. Berg was working with a script by Joshua Zetumer, but Morel is jettisoning that version of Herbert's tale.

"We're starting from scratch," says Morel. "Peter had an approach which was not mine at all, and we're starting over again. I don't think we're going to keep any elements of the Peter Berg script. It was good, actually. It was interesting. It was just not our vision. I can't tell you right now [who's writing it with me], it's going to be official next week. The deals are not done!"

The helmer does confirm that right now and for the next couple of months he will be focusing on developing Dune, and that he and his mystery scribes will start writing the screenplay in early February. Still, he seems cautious when talking about it -- as if he doesn't want to jinx his good fortune of landing the project.

"Dune is such a huge, huge project," he says. "It's big, it's challenging, it's long-term -- we're only starting. We have to rewrite the script, we have to develop a whole universe. It's going to be a long thing, so who knows. But I'm passionate about Dune so I'd love to do it next."

He says it's an intimidating film to undertake, especially since he's personally such a big fan of the series of books.

"It's tricky. Everybody refers to both the book and to David Lynch's film, which was in a way a monument to the '80s," he laughs. "It became a huge event. It didn't do well theatrically, I think, but in a way it kind of marked and printed an image on Dune. Everybody now who reads Dune reads it with David Lynch's images in mind. So we have to get away from that. It's not a remake of David Lynch's movie. We're doing a re-reading, a brand new approach on the book, a very true approach to the book, the original material. So we will have to deal with trying to erase the image that David Lynch did so we can propose our image."

One of the great difficulties of adapting the book is the delicate matter of the inner monologues, where the reader hears the thoughts of the characters. Lynch's version attempted to reconcile this situation with strange sort of quasi-narrations, but Morel acknowledges that this is an element that needs to be addressed in his version.

"That's one of the challenges, yes," he says. "Everything that is in Paul's head, we'll have to show it on screen and find the right approach to make it visually interesting. But I think the technology we have now allows us much more than we could do before, so we'll see."

And speaking of technology, Morel also addressed the most obvious question that comes up these days regarding any big-budget sci-fi movie: 3D or not 3D?

"I don't know," he laughs. "It's so early in the project that we haven't had that conversation yet. I'd love it to be 3D, of course. It's the kind of movie that has the scope to be 3D. Will they do it in 3D? I'd push for that, but I don't know. As a viewer, I've just been watching Avatar with my kids twice in the theater already and had a blast. It's an amazing experience."

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Piece of concept art from the Berg production vault.
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"I'm like a dog chasing cars, I wouldn't know what to do if I caught one. . . . I'm not a schemer. I just do things."

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Maybe they should put a cap in this ass since there's already a pretty damn good version from the 80s that covers the bases...
Likely because of incessant delays, Taken director Pierre Morel has resigned from the directing duties on Paramount’s $100 million+ adaptation of Frank Herbert’s popular sci-fi novel Dune, which Deadline are reporting has until the Spring to begin filming or it’ll be canned for good.


This probably gives the studio until the new year to find a replacement helmer after previously losing Peter Berg to Universal’s board game adaptation of Battleship. The reason for the Spring deadline is Herbert’s estate have itchy feet and aren’t willing to give Paramount further extensions only to never see the film they were promised ever made.

So Paramount are facing potentially their third major restart in attempting to crack the 1966 Hugo Award winning novel, though ideally they hope the unnamed filmmakers (i.e. everyone in town) they have sent Chase Palmer’s latest draft screenplay to will like the draft mostly as is, as they scarcely have time for a page 1 re-write. Obviously, that cuts down the creatives they might attract.

And Deadline say Pierre Morel is staying on as executive producer, so this is very much Morel’s movie under a surrogate helmer.

Reading between the lines however there’s a good chance the film won’t be made at all at Paramount. The scope of the picture is so expansive and so very expensive that they will only pull the trigger if they are 100% confident on how it is shaping up. At the end of the day they are more likely to take the couple of million hit that obtaining the rights and the aborted attempts will have cost them than risk a large budget.

As I’ve mentioned before I know very little of Dune – I haven’t read James Herbert’s text and nor have I ever seen the infamous David Lynch original but I am very curious as to how they keep hiring action directors for this project, when to me it sounds like it needs a methodical, cerebral, sci-fi kind of guy. A film ripe for a visionary like a Ridley Scott or a Peter Weir type – but they will never attract those names with Morel’s ideas being so heavily the focus.


source: http://www.obsessedwithfilm.com/movie-n ... z14o2Dv9fG
"I'm like a dog chasing cars, I wouldn't know what to do if I caught one. . . . I'm not a schemer. I just do things."

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was just coming here to post this, which has some additional information:
io9 wrote:Another director quits Dune, as time runs out on for the project

Pierre Morel (Taken) has reportedly quit as director of Frank Herbert's Dune, which Peter Berg was also on board to direct at one point. And unless Paramount can get the film up and running by spring, they'll lose the rights.

According to Deadline, Paramount faces a "ticking clock situation" over Dune, which is seeking a new director in the wake of Morel's departure. (Morel will still be credited as an executive producer.) The film has a solid script — Morel worked with writer Chase Palmer to revise the screenplay that Berg had been working with — but Paramount could still walk away. Says Deadline:
Despite the ticking clock, Paramount is proceeding as cautiously as it would on any project that will carry a price-tag well north of $100 million. Unless studio brass is absolutely confident by the time the buzzer goes off, Paramount will kiss the project goodbye. It will forfeit the six figures it has paid in option costs and risk development costs, though it could recoup some of the latter if another backer embraces the script Paramount paid Palmer to write.
Part of the problem? Paramount has to agree with the Herbert estate on a director — and the Herbert estate is represented by Richard P. Rubinstein, who produced the Syfy miniseries. Add to that the studio's foot-dragging on committing to spending over $100 million to remake a film that flopped in the 1980s, and you have a situation that could prevent us from seeing another big-screen Dune adaptation for years.

There are two best-case scenarios: Either Paramount finds another director and gets its act together in the next few months, or the Herbert estate turns around and sells the rights to a studio that's willing to move faster. The absolute worst-case scenario is that the Herbert estate finds a studio that's willing to do a Dune film quickly — and badly. Fingers crossed.

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Paramount is pretty gun shy about spending on big budget films these days, so I'd be surprised if they end up making it.

If they do, they should get that Lynch guy to give it a shot. I'll bet he could do something interesting with it.
Just cut them up like regular chickens

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i hope this happens, i really do.

i did something i shouldn't have last night...

a couple weeks ago i finished reading Dune for the first time. i have no idea how i didn't read this before, but i was blown away. i'm working my way down the line, having just finished Messiah on friday. upon reading Messiah, i realized that the "Children of Dune" miniseries isn't; meaning, they sort of compiled several books into one series. i need to re-watch after reading the next couple....

at any rate, last night i finally picked up the blu-ray of lynch's Dune, thinking it would be great to revisit now that i've read the book.

that was a huge mistake.

i loved the film, having seen it in the theater when it came out and many, many times over the years, but it had been years since i watched it. last night, we all watched it. my younger son (9) loved it, thought it was great. my older son (14), who had read the book a year or so ago, kept complaining and laughing.

i just kept shaking my head, speechless.

as a film adaptation of a book, it is a complete catastrophe. a total train wreck. it seemed like the only actors who had even read the book before filming were gurney (stewart) and to a lesser extent the baron. i would say paul too, but there were so many things created simply for the film that it was impossible to tell. i knew that the weirding modules existed in the film, but watching it again - what the fuck was that? why? just... why? there was no reason for that. everything was just so skimmed over and so shallow in the film... such a terrible thing done to the book. i now know why people who loved the book hated this film. every single character was just a shadow of the true character, so thin and flimsy and cliché. just awful. the fremen seem more like some floundering cult just waiting for someone to show up and tell them what to do rather than a strong, proud and ancient indigenous people. ugh, i could go on forever.

as a stand-alone film, it's dense and pretty inapproachable at times, completely and inexplicably nonsensical and full of holes at others. i don't see how anyone without at least some vague, high-level idea of the novel could watch this and have it make any kind of sense. parts of it are very much "lynchian" and i love some of the things he did visually. you can tell it was a tight budget but he did the best with what he had. some other things he did visually were... not what i pictured when reading the book. but, i can accept that.

all of that being said, what is going on with this disc? it's 2h17m, so i assumed the disney version. yet, lynch's name is all over it - no smithee. i know they retired that name a few years ago, but are they changing the past with it?

once i get over the shock of burning a happy memory, i will re-watch the 3h version to see if it succeeds any better. but i doubt it.

need to watch the mini-series again now, as i'm sure it's not nearly as good as i remember it being.

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TC wrote:my older son (14), who had read the book a year or so ago, kept complaining and laughing.

....

as a stand-alone film, it's dense and pretty inapproachable at times, completely and inexplicably nonsensical and full of holes at others. i don't see how anyone without at least some vague, high-level idea of the novel could watch this and have it make any kind of sense.
Haven't read the book. But yeah, I agree with all this. I've actually seen it twice (!), once quite a few years ago and most recently in the past week. I mean, the basic story actually isn't that hard to follow — it's a typical "young lad matures and becomes a hero" saga. But all the plot machinations and dealings among the various races are hopelessly and needlessly muddled, so much so that there's a great temptation to just give up about 30 minutes in. The dialogue, science and history make absolutely no sense to anyone without a master's in Herbert studies, and as your 14-year-old noted, the script is loaded with howlingly bad lines ("I'd know the difference"; "Urine and feces are processed in the thigh pads"; "Spice!... pure unrefined spice!"). I can't believe that this apparently was intended to be the start of some kind of Star Wars franchise, with as little appeal it has to a mass audience.

But yet the whole shebang is such an oddball goober enterprise that I can't quite part with the DVD.
This is a snakeskin jacket. And for me it's a symbol of my individuality and my belief in personal freedom.