Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Two is almost everyone’s current obsession thanks to the brilliant execution of the source material by the cast and crew. It goes without saying that the sequel has surpassed its predecessor in more ways than one. Whether it’s the acting, the soundtrack, the cinematography, or the direction, Dune: Part Two was able to blow the audience’s minds through its two-hour seventeen-minute runtime.
However, Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of Frank Herbert’s sci-fi novels wasn’t the first go Hollywood had at the story. Back in 1984, director David Lynch released another adaptation titled Dune starring Kyle MacLachlan and Francesca Annis. Unfortunately, the film was met with an overwhelming amount of negative feedback which led people to wonder what Ridley Scott would’ve turned the film into, should things have gone according to plan.
Ridley Scott Almost Directed Dune (1984)
When Frank Herbert released his Dune novels, it was as if he revamped the sci-fi genre. The author spent a lot of time and energy into making the books what they are since perfection does not come easily. Seeing Herbert’s success with the book, Hollywood decided to bring the pages to life and for that, Planet of the Apes (1968) producer Arthur P. Jacobs was brought on board. However, his death in 1974 led to Jean-Paul Gibon acquiring the rights and bringing Alejandro Jodorowsky as the director.
Of course, this didn’t work out either and things moved on to Dino De Laurentiis buying the film’s rights. He brought Ridley Scott to direct Dune and things were going well until they weren’t. In fact, Scott had even come up with a take on Herbert’s book for the film. However, things soon went South.
According to a thread on X, Scott was already occupied with Blade Runner (1982) and when Herbert revealed a 3-hour-long script, the director was convinced that it would take him two and a half years to make the film. This would’ve given Scott the time he needed to make Dune as perfect as possible, giving the source material the respect it deserved.
Unfortunately, De Laurentiis wanted to have the film ready to go as soon as possible and because of this, as well as other reasons, Scott decided to back out. Finally, David Lynch was brought on board and the rest is history. Dune went on to receive negative reviews from the critics with Robert Egert calling it “a real mess…incomprehensible, ugly, unstructured, pointless.” Yikes.
As for Blade Runner, the film was deemed a masterpiece despite initially receiving mixed reviews. In fact, Egert even added the film’s final cut to his ‘Great Movies’ list, praising its stunning visuals. Had Scott been allowed to move ahead with his vision for Dune, perhaps he would’ve done to it what he did with Blade Runner and the film could’ve met with a different fate.
Ridley Scott Talks about Quitting Dune
During an interview with Total Film, Scott opened up about what went down during his time attached to Dune. He started off by revealing that he and writer Rudy Wurlitzer had come up with “a very good take” for the film.
“It’s always been filmable. I had a writer called Rudy Wurlitzer, of the Wurlitzer family…We did a very good take on Dune, because early days, I’d work very, very closely with the writer.”
Unfortunately, when Scott learned that the film was going to be much more expensive than the original plan and would be filmed in Mexico, he decided it was time to back out.
“Dino said, ‘It’s expensive, we’re going to have to make it in Mexico.’ I said, ‘What!’ He said, ‘Mexico.’ I said, ‘Really?’ So he sent me to Mexico City. And with the greatest respect to Mexico City, in those days [it was] pretty pongy. I didn’t love it. I went to the studio in Mexico City where the floors were Earth floors in the studio. I said, ‘Nah, Dino, I don’t want to make this a hardship.’ And so I actually backed out and instead moved on to Legend.”
If things had gone according to plan, there’s no doubt that Scott would’ve taken his sweet time to make Dune a cinematic masterpiece like he did with Blade Runner in the eighties!
You can rent/buy Blade Runner on Prime Video and stream Dune on Max.
