35 Facts About Dune (2021 film)

1.

Dune is a 2021 American epic science fiction film directed by Denis Villeneuve from a screenplay by Villeneuve, Jon Spaihts, and Eric Roth.

FactSnippet No. 1,884,118
2.

Dune was scheduled for a late 2020 release, but it was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

FactSnippet No. 1,884,119
3.

Shortly after publication in 1965, Dune was identified for potential film prospects and the rights to adapt the novel to film have been held by several producers since 1971.

FactSnippet No. 1,884,120
4.

David Lynch's Dune, produced by Raffaella De Laurentiis in 1984, was intended as a three-hour film but was cut to 137 minutes; it was poorly received and Lynch himself ended up disowning it.

FactSnippet No. 1,884,121
5.

Prospects to make a successful adaptation of Dune improved after the critical and commercial success of the film series adaptations of The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter, both of which maintained most of the works' key characters and plots while managing the limited running time.

FactSnippet No. 1,884,122
6.

Villeneuve's enthusiasm to direct a Dune film earned Parent's respect, who called Villeneuve, and quickly hired him after Villeneuve described his vision for the film to her.

FactSnippet No. 1,884,123
7.

Dune chose to complete his other films, such as Arrival and Blade Runner 2049, as he wanted to spend more time to develop the film and co-write it himself.

FactSnippet No. 1,884,124
8.

Dune felt "Dune is my world" due to his background in directing science fiction films.

FactSnippet No. 1,884,125
9.

Dune was produced by Villeneuve, Parent, and Cale Boyter, with Tanya Lapointe, Brian Herbert, Byron Merritt, Kim Herbert, Thomas Tull, Jon Spaihts, Richard P Rubinstein, John Harrison, and Herbert W Gain serving as executive producers and Kevin J Anderson as creative consultant.

FactSnippet No. 1,884,126
10.

Dune chose to make two films as he felt that the novel was too large and complex for one.

FactSnippet No. 1,884,127
11.

Villeneuve had seen Lynch's adaptation of Dune, and respected both Lynch and the film, but chose not to build on any elements from it, saying "I'm going back to the book, and going to the images that came out when I read it".

FactSnippet No. 1,884,128
12.

Dune sought to streamline many parts of the novel for the film, and wanted to keep "the atmosphere and poetry of the book intact".

FactSnippet No. 1,884,129
13.

Dune wanted to move the Baron from being a caricature, as he was presented in the novel, to a more complex antagonist.

FactSnippet No. 1,884,130
14.

Vermette stated that the set design for Dune would be guided by the need "to ground the story into realistic settings to help the audience believe in the extraordinary elements".

FactSnippet No. 1,884,131
15.

Dune re-read the novel, as he felt that "the book gives a lot of clues or cues that will help you navigate it to design things, but it's quite nonspecific", adding that he wanted to support Villeneuve's original vision of the novel when he read it as a young teenager, and base the design around Herbert's original novel.

FactSnippet No. 1,884,132
16.

Dune noted that he thought the overall world of Dune was retro-futuristic and analog.

FactSnippet No. 1,884,133
17.

Dune wanted his team to design the cockpits in a way so that it allowed the actors inside to "always be in visual contact with the landscape and feeling the impact of the landscape seen from above".

FactSnippet No. 1,884,134
18.

Dune added that though it was difficult to use ornithopthers for filming, he felt it was "quite rewarding to see them in position in the desert".

FactSnippet No. 1,884,135
19.

Dune ultimately felt that the planet was defined by "dramatic coastal mountain ranges and cliffs", with forests that contained Norwegian pines.

FactSnippet No. 1,884,136
20.

Dune designed the city in a "rock bowl" shape to protect the infrastructure from the sandworms, and the buildings were built at an angle to protect it against the high windspeeds on the planet.

FactSnippet No. 1,884,137
21.

Dune made the building walls thick, as it results in a coolness inside.

FactSnippet No. 1,884,138
22.

Dune's design was inspired primarily by the Middle Ages, saying "I would go to the medieval world and imagine what it would look like in the future", and used the term "mod-eval" to describe her approach to designing the costumes.

FactSnippet No. 1,884,139
23.

Dune found similarities between the Fremen and the French Resistance, and called the Sardaukar the "Nazis of this universe", and took inspiration from various painters, including Giotto, Francisco Goya, and Caravaggio, and British art historian John Berger.

FactSnippet No. 1,884,140
24.

Dune took cues from the fashion of Balenciaga, and the Bedouin and Tuareg people.

FactSnippet No. 1,884,141
25.

Dune researched Roman and Greek mythology, as she felt that "there was a connection there with House Atreides and House Harkonnen", which she thought "seemed like a kind of a real Greek and Roman tragedy on one level".

FactSnippet No. 1,884,142
26.

Dune dyed the gauze for the Fremen in the desert colors, which was inspired by the color of sand and rocks in the Jordanian filming locations, as she felt that it highlighted the movement and shapes of people's bodies.

FactSnippet No. 1,884,143
27.

Dune hired artisans from across Europe, who created concept designs and over 150 individual pieces for the suits.

FactSnippet No. 1,884,144
28.

Dune further went on to explain that different colored screens were used depending on the imagery of the foreground and background, which made compositing them together easier.

FactSnippet No. 1,884,145
29.

At the time, Zimmer had been approached by Christopher Nolan for composing on his then-upcoming film Tenet, but Zimmer opted for Dune, citing his personal love for the book as the reason.

FactSnippet No. 1,884,146
30.

Dune avoided watching Lynch's Dune so as not to be influenced by Toto's music, instead spending a week in a desert in Utah to incorporate its sounds into the score.

FactSnippet No. 1,884,147
31.

Dune was scheduled to be released on November 20,2020, but was pushed back to December 18,2020.

FactSnippet No. 1,884,148
32.

Dune had its world premiere on September 3,2021 at the 78th Venice International Film Festival.

FactSnippet No. 1,884,149
33.

Dune is out to wow us, and sometimes succeeds, but it wants to get under your skin like a hypnotically toxic mosquito.

FactSnippet No. 1,884,150
34.

Dune was nominated for ten Academy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, eleven British Academy Film Awards, ten Critics' Choice Movie Awards, two AACTA International Awards, ten Satellite Awards, one Grammy Award, one Hollywood Music in Media Awards, four People's Choice Awards, one Screen Actors Guild Awards, three Dorian Awards, and one Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Award, among others.

FactSnippet No. 1,884,151
35.

Villeneuve expressed interest in making a third film based on Dune Messiah, saying that its possibility depended on the success of Dune: Part Two.

FactSnippet No. 1,884,152