A new version of Frank Herbert’s Hugo and Nubula award winning science fiction Dune has been talked about for a while and rumours over who will direct it are circulating. Paramount are looking for a director who is passionate about the project and who has the creative vision to pull it off. The two names that have recently popped up are Neil Marshall (The Descent) and Neill Blomkamp (District 9) with Marshall apparently being the favoured of the two. I know if I had to chose between the two of them it would be Blomkamp I would go for. He’s proven he can pull off spectacular and intelligent sci-fi on a relatively small budget whereas Marshall’s best work has been his low budget British horrors Dog Soldiers and The Descent, good films but on a small scale.

Although the 1984 David Lynch version of Dune has its many fans there is definitely room for improvement. The film is undoubtedly jumbled and hard to follow (for those unfamilliar with the book anyway) and Lynch has distanced himself from the finished product because he wasn’t given full creative control. Lynch has not returned to big budget blockbuster filmmaking since and even shunned the opportunity to do a director’s cut of the film.

If you are clued up on the remake of Dune you might be thinking, hang on wasn’t Peter Berg meant to be directing? Well the Hancock director has dropped out to concentrate on other projects including the sequel to Hancock and Battleship, a film version of the Hasbro boardgame. Seems odd that he’d drop out of directing Dune to concentrate on the seemingly bland idea of Battleship the movie, however he’s not the only director turning to board games for inspiration at the moment. Ridley Scott has a film version of Monopoly in the works and Martin Scorsese is rumoured to be working on an adaptation of Hungry Hungry Hippos. Ok I may have just invented that rumour, but I kind of hope Mr Scorsese reads this and makes it happen anyway.

Source: Collider