The most obvious way for this series to be adapted would be to only focus on the first three novels, Dune, Dune Messiah and Children of Dune. The series is considered to waver in quality from title to title, and there is a major question of ‘filmability’ with parts of the Dune saga and how well this challenging material will land with mass audiences, but based on the sheer amount of story from Frank Herbert’s six novels alone, Denis Villeneuve could do at least a few more movies after the Dune two-parter. And things get weird too we’re talking half-human, half giant sandworm weird. If Dune is Robert’s Rebellion against the Mad King, the rest of the series is A Song of Ice and Fire, what comes after happily ever after. What starts as a hero’s journey to avenge his family, free his people and overthrow an evil empire morphs over time into a metaphysical family saga, rife with political intrigue and religious elements that is interstellar in scope, taking place over literally thousands of years. Frank Herbert wrote six mainline Dune books before his death in 1986: Dune, Dune Messiah, Children of Dune, God Emperor of Dune, Heretics of Dune and Chapterhouse: Dune. Dune can be like Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope in terms of franchise potential only here the story for more films already exists. That ‘maybe more’ coda opens up a whole range of possibilities where two films could give way to an entire series and franchise. But let’s air on the side of optimism and assume that Dune is great and a hit, what then? Denis Villeneuve has said that his goal is to make two films, maybe more. I’ve already written about what a financial gamble Dune might be so it’s not impossible that we only get one Denis Villeneuve Dune movie. They will shoot individually, and presumably the second one getting made will hinge on the success of the first one. However, unlike something like The Lord of the Rings, Dune parts one and two are not filming back to back. So it is advantageous from a storytelling perspective to give the novel two films to tell the story of Paul Atreides. Frank Herbert’s novel is extremely complex with tons of characters and moving pieces, not unlike Game of Thrones. In contrast, the Dune mini-series on the then-Sci-fi Channel was a 3 episode, 4 hour and 25 minute telling of the story. Dune is an expansive novel, and while David Lynch’s film covers the whole book, it is not an especially faithful adaptation. This approach makes sense so as to not shortchange the story.
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