We know that Denis Villeneuve’s upcoming “Dune” is only the first of a planned two-film adaptation of Frank Herbert’s iconic novel.
The dual film approach makes sense as the tome is so dense that the sole previous big screen adaptation, David Lynch’s 1984 film, was bursting at the seems to contain it all in 136 minutes – and made some serious cuts and changes to the story it in order to achieve that.
Villeneuve is promising a more faithful approach, but the obvious concern is that a second film has not yet been greenlit and so many are wondering if this will only feel like half a story. Speaking to Collider, the film’s cinematographer Greig Fraser assures fans that they will get a full ‘standalone’ film in December:
“It’s a fully formed story in itself with places to go. It’s a fully standalone epic film that people will get a lot out of when they see it… It was quite an adventure visually. It was a beautiful experience making it. The people involved with it, I was overwhelmed. Some of the actors, as well as being insanely talented actors, are just lovely, lovely people who I’ve become very close to since then.”
Fraser has experience with sci-fi epics having served as lenser for both “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” and on “The Mandalorian” series. Fraser promises “Dune” will look quite different to a galaxy far, far away:
“It was quite fun because I had to forget a lot of ‘Star Wars’ when I was making ‘Dune’. It wasn’t hard, though. Denis and I spoke clearly about how the film should look and should feel, and the formats and this and that, so it was not hard to swerve and change lanes.
There were some similarities like the deserts. I mean listen, ultimately I’m positive George Lucas was inspired by ‘Dune’ when he made ‘Star Wars.’ I don’t know if that’s sacrilegious to talk about, but there are a lot of similarities in some areas, so you could tell he was definitely influenced by that. So I had to be careful doing both [‘Dune’ and ‘The Mandalorian’] and not to repeat myself. Also not just for the sake of the movie, but for fun. I hate to do the same thing twice.”
“Dune” currently remains scheduled to arrive in cinemas on December 18th.
