While so many films have seen significant delays in recent months, one film in 2020 that has stuck to its release date for now is Denis Villeneuve’s sci-fi epic “Dune” which arrives this Christmas.
The big-budget first of a dual film adaptation of the Frank Herbert novel finished its main shoot well before the pandemic arrived ahead of a lengthy post-production period. Boasting one of the most impressive casts of any film in recent years, anticipation is incredibly high.
During a recent interview with IndieWire, Villeneuve revealed that though he had the luxury of time on his side, he broke “Dune” up into two shoots and was just getting ready to engage in the next round of filming when the pandemic hit:
“We were about to finish some shooting… the movie was like almost finished. Dune has been made in an unusual way which is that we made the main shooting, and then I edited that part of the movie and I was planning to go back to shoot some elements later because I wanted to readjust the movie – I needed time, and it’s a luxury that I had [before the pandemic]… When the virus hit North America as we were about to go back to do those elements.”
As a result, Villeneuve and his cast and crew are only now heading back to complete that additional photography this month which means everyone is under a crunch to get the footage assembled and finished in time for release:
“The impact was that it crushed my schedule right now. It will be a sprint to finish the movie on time right now. We were allowed to go back to shoot – we’re going back to shoot those elements in a few weeks, [the ones] we were supposed to shoot earlier. It meant that I also had to finish some elements of the movie like VFX and the editing being in Montreal as my crew stayed in Los Angeles.”
One issue he’s facing is editing the film by remote. While things like supervising the VFX shots and such he finds “kind of easy to do from afar,” he has found that editing really requires one to “be in the same room. I really miss not being in the same room with my editor.”
Hopefully the issues won’t have any impact on the final product. “Dune” is currently slated for release on December 18th.
