A brand new poster for Dune: Part Two has been released by Warner Bros with the new – later – release date of 15 March 2024.

The movie was originally penned to be released in November but has been delayed due to the current SAG-AFTRA strikes.

Dune: Part Two will explore the mythic journey of Paul Atreides as he unites with Chani and the Fremen while on a warpath of revenge against the conspirators who destroyed his family. Facing a choice between the love of his life and the fate of the known universe, he endeavors to prevent a terrible future only he can foresee.

“The first part was really a way to introduce the world to the audience, and now that this introduction has been done, the second part will be playtime!” said Villeneuve when we spoke to him in 2021 (before the second part had even been greenlit). “It’s just going to be having fun with the world and it will definitely be more cinematic and a pleasure to make.

“I think it’s going to be kind of awesome!”

The movie is directed by Villeneuve from a screenplay he co-wrote with Jon Spaihts based on Frank Herbert’s classic novel. It stars Timothée Chalamet (Bones And All), Zendaya (Spider-Man: No Way Home), Rebecca Ferguson (Silo), Josh Brolin (Avengers: End Game), Austin Butler (Elvis), Florence Pugh (Don’t Worry Darling), Dave Bautista (Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3), Christopher Walken (Severance), Stephen McKinley Henderson (Devs), Léa Seydoux (Crimes of the Future), with Stellan Skarsgård (Avengers: Age of Ultron), Charlotte Rampling (Assassin’s Creed), and Javier Bardem (Mother!).

Villeneuve is again collaborating with his Dune creatives for this second part, including Oscar-winning director of photography Greig Fraser; Oscar-winning production designer Patrice Vermette; Oscar-winning editor Joe Walker; Oscar-winning visual effects supervisor Paul Lambert; Oscar-nominated costume designer Jacqueline West. Oscar-winning composer Hans Zimmer is again on hand to create the score.

Dune: Part Two will be in cinemas on 15 March 2024. 

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Let’s head back to Arrakis this November for the second part of Denis Villeneuve’s epic sci fi Dune, based on the novel by Frank Herbert, which sees the saga continue with an expanded all-star international ensemble cast! Now we’ve been given our first real look of Dune: Part Two with the release of the trailer.

Watch it here…

Dune: Part Two will explore the mythic journey of Paul Atreides as he unites with Chani and the Fremen while on a warpath of revenge against the conspirators who destroyed his family. Facing a choice between the love of his life and the fate of the known universe, he endeavors to prevent a terrible future only he can foresee.

“The first part was really a way to introduce the world to the audience, and now that this introduction has been done, the second part will be playtime!” said Villeneuve when we spoke to him in 2021 (before the second part had even been greenlit). “It’s just going to be having fun with the world and it will definitely be more cinematic and a pleasure to make.

“I think it’s going to be kind of awesome!”

Check out some first-look images here…

The movie is directed by Villeneuve from a screenplay he co-wrote with Jon Spaihts based on Herbert’s novel. It stars (deep breath now)…  Timothée Chalamet (Bones And All), Zendaya (Spider-Man: No Way Home), Rebecca Ferguson (Silo), Josh Brolin (Avengers: End Game), Austin Butler (Elvis), Florence Pugh (Don’t Worry Darling), Dave Bautista (Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3), Christopher Walken (Severance), Stephen McKinley Henderson (Devs), Léa Seydoux (Crimes of the Future), with Stellan Skarsgård (Avengers: Age of Ultron), Charlotte Rampling (Assassin’s Creed), and Javier Bardem (Mother!).

Dune: Part Two will be in cinemas on 3 November 2023

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Often, when people think about other forms of consciousness, it’s all lumped into “AI”, however there are a plethora of other types of intelligence that could be “out there”. Sci-Fi philosophises about this, but we also have many likely possibilities on Earth to draw inspiration from.

Therefore, I’d like to show you a few smatterings of what non-human intelligence might look like…

Alien Minds – Pradors from the Polity Universe

Neal Asher’s Polity Universe deals with an alien species called the Prador. They’re a little brutal, and for some/many of the youngsters who are not up to scratch, life isn’t fantastic. Their brains are excavated from their bodies and implanted into drones and ships, in order to control these vessels. Fortunately for the Prador whose brains and bodies remain intact, these “repurposed” Prador minds are actually quite capable of the complex calculations required for various tasks, in lieu of computerised artificial intelligence.

Hive-Type Animals – Ant/Kern from Children of Time universe.

Adrian Tchaikovsky’s inspiration from nature yields various forms of intelligence that are quite different to our own. From the sentient spiders capable of accessing matrix-style memories and abilities through a genetic archive, to the bafflingly inconsistent, instinctual and yet genius “octopi” (octopuses). However, the intelligence I’m focusing on here is that of the once-human Kern, who at first becomes a quasi-computer AI entity, then morphs into an approximation of a hyper-capable simulated Kern running on a circuitry of ants, instead. So she ends up (at least in book 2), as a computer-program type thing whose substrate is the interaction of ants, instead of chips, circuitry and wires. Comprende?

Arboreal Networks – Trees from The Hidden Life of Trees

Veering off the truly Sci-Fi for a moment, to the more speculative (and hazily scientific), we have Wohlleben’s anthropomorphised trees. He considers root networks that are sometimes connected between trees and forests, and ancillary types of fungal network connections amongst them, to be potentially analogous to an internet, or collective mindset. Interesting and definitely worth a read, and it’s kickstarted me into downloading books related to fungal networks for my ever-expanding To Be Read pile.

Hybrids – ‘Mother’ from Raised By Wolves

There are so many types of hybrid entities speculated in fiction that it would be impossible to delve into all of them. However, one interesting case study is from the (unfortunately) cancelled tv show Raised by Wolves. There was a character called Mother, who at first appears as a bog-standard robotic AI, although as her origins are expanded upon, we begin to realise she’s a hell of a lot more. She’s not a hybrid in the sense that she was once human who became part-robotic/AI, she’s a hybrid in the sense that she’s clearly an artificial entity, although she’s also clearly biological too. What’s more, it’s indicated that she was designed by aliens, or ancient humans, or something-else-not-really-explained-since-the-series-was-cancelled (bastards!), but at the least, she wasn’t designed by modern day humans. The show ends before we understand fully what she is, but it’s an interesting take on the hybrid-intellect!

Evolved Humans – Mentats from Dune

Almost a cheat, since they’re essentially smart humans, but mentats from the Dune books are computer stand-ins, who pretty much perform complex calculations in their heads. They come about as a result of a ban on AIs or thinking machines and surpass our current computational abilities. If you haven’t read the Dune books by Frank Herbert, you seriously need to!

Echoes of Time (Book 2 of the Tapache’s Promise Trilogy) by James Murdo is out now. Order your copy here.

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Given sci-fi’s focus on the future, it can be difficult to remember that it also has a history. And like other areas of literary endeavour, that history is littered with canonical works, pieces of writing that laid the foundation for what was to come after.

Frank Herbert’s Dune, which fuses classic sci-fi technology with the mysticism and dynastic dynamics of high fantasy, is one of those. Here are five others. If you love sci-fi and want to travel back through time to where it all began, you could do worse than to check out the following.

Although often lauded as one of the great gothic and/or horror novels, Frankenstein can also lay claim to being one of the first — if not the first — true works of science fiction.  The monster of the novel (not Frankenstein, by the way, that was the name of the doctor who created him) is not a creature of magic or fantasy.  He is the result of a series of scientific experiments that take place in a lab, brought to life by a jolt of electricity.  What is that if not a glimpse, however darkly, into the future?  The cell that became Dolly the sheep, the first clone, was brought to life in exactly the same way.

That great theme running through so much of sci-fi, alien invasion of the Earth, successful or otherwise, can trace its origins back to this Victorian classic, in which envious, highly advanced Martians launch an invasion of Earth from their dying planet.  The novel draws on the cutting-edge science of the day.  The American astronomer, Percival Lowell, had popularised the idea that there were canals on Mars, moving water from the poles to irrigate a desert planet.  Less well known, perhaps, is that the novel’s denouement also displays a sophisticated understanding of germ theory.

Galactic Patrol, by E.E. “Doc” Smith (1937)

Long before Captain Kirk and Starfleet, Smith’s Galactic Patrol served to protect the galaxy from the evil designs of those who would do us harm.  First serialised in Astounding magazine in 1937 and then published in book form in 1950, Galactic Patrol is the great-great granddaddy of galaxy-spanning space opera, both military and otherwise.  Make allowances for when it was written, and it is difficult to think of a modern space opera theme that Smith didn’t play around with beforehand.

I, Robot, by Isaac Asimov (1950)

Linked together by a framing narrative, I, Robot is a collection of short stories written between 1940 and 1950 about, you guessed it, robots.  Much of what sci-fi does with robots is drawn from these seminal tales, not least the concept that robots should be self-limiting in their ability to do harm, an idea pulled together by Asimov in his three laws of robotics.  The three laws and variations thereon have been relied upon by sci-fi writers ever since.  Read and enjoy.  Then consider the times when the stories are set (Asimov’s future is roughly our present) and weep with frustration.

If you want to look for a precursor to the modern trend of retelling fairy stories as sci-fi novels, you could do worse than look at the Snow Queen, which unashamedly draws its inspiration from the Hans Christian Anderson tale of the same name.  But to talk of Vinge’s novel in those terms is to do it a grave disservice.  This is a brilliant example of someone using sci-fi’s fascination with technology and aliens as a mere backdrop to something else.  Beyond space travel and intriguing devices, The Snow Queen is a love story, an examination of cultures (Vinge has a background in anthropology), and a poignant plea about the dangers of over-exploitation.  Come to The Snow Queen for the writing alone.  Even if you loathe sci-fi, I can almost guarantee you will love this.

Braking Day by Adam Oyebanji is published by Jo Fletcher Books (Quercus) on Tuesday 5th April, £20

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There have been a few attempts to adapt Frank Herbert’s seminal sci-fi classic (including, famously, David Lynch who disowned his own Eighties version) and now’s the turn for visionary French director Denis Villeneuve (Arrival, Blade Runner: 2049.)

We find out more about the movie’s stunning costumes with costume designers, Jacqueline West ( Quills, The Revenant, Argo) pictured above with Denis Villeneuve and Bob Morgan (Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, X-Men: Days of Future Past, Man of Steel) who tell us what it’s like working with Denis Villeneuve and just what it takes to create costumes for whole new worlds…

How did you first get involved with Dune?

Jacqueline West: It was kind of crazy because my agent called me and told me that Denis wanted me to do this. Of course, I loved his movies, but it’s a bit out of my genre comfort zone… and I said no! Then I talked to my daughter who is a big fan of the book – a ‘Duney’ – and she said ‘you cannot say no to that!’ So I called [producer] Mary Parent who I’d worked with on The Revenant and I said ‘the definitive no, is now a definitive maybe’.

She said: ‘Great! Come to my office and meet Denis. I can guarantee you when you talk to him, you’re going to want to do this’ and she was right. I talked to him and his whole take on Dune… I knew this would be the Dune that everybody was waiting for.  I could tell he had an incredible eye and was a real auteur director that I could count on. That I’d have a degree of protection.

He said: ‘The reason I want you is that you don’t do sci-fi. I don’t want this to look like a typical sci-fi film. I don’t want it to look like a video game. I love your period work that you do so much and I really want you to do this!’.

He was so compelling that I went home, I talked to my husband and he said ‘okay, I think you should do this’. He could hear the excitement in my voice. So, yes, I ended up doing it and then I brought Bob [Morgan] on because Bob has always been my supervisor on movies, but I had not had experience with specialty costumes and Bob had supervised a lot of films. It was a match made in heaven. We were just great together as a team.

Bob Morgan: Jacqueline and I have been great friends for many years. We’ve worked together many times. She contacted me and she said: ‘Would you co-design this with me?’ And I said: ‘Hmm, let me think… yes!’ I didn’t have to think hard about it. I loved the book as a kid. I love the material and Denis Villeneuve, I loved his movies, so it was really an easy yes to say.  It was large in scale. We were in Los Angeles at that time and we realised that we were going to have to divide and conquer. So we worked for a while in Los Angeles, and then I took off to Budapest and started setting up our operation there.

Jacquline, how was your first foray into sci-fi with Dune?

Jacqueline West: I came kind of a virgin to the whole thing. I’d never seen Star Wars. I’d never seen the Lynch film [of Dune]. I had seen a bit of the Jodorowsky [version of Dune] so I was familiar with it and I had read the book. I’m from Berkeley, California, and I went to Berkeley and everybody in Berkeley has read Dune, trust me. Dune is the Berkeley Bible! Because it was political. It was geopolitical. It was prophetic. It was mystical.

In fact, I lived on a houseboat and the bow of my houseboat was about 30 feet from the bow of Alan Watts’ house boat, and that’s where Frank Herbert wrote Dune on the weekends! I never met Frank Herbert but a good friend of mine who’s a journalist worked with him at the Chronicle in San Francisco, told me that he wrote part of Dune on Alan Watts’ houseboat!

Bob, you’ve worked on quite a few genre projects – what was it like working on such a huge sci-fi tale as Dune?

Bob Morgan: It is such an epic tale. It is almost like four points on a compass. There are four very interrelated but distinct directions. The four houses, the Harkonnens, the Atreides, the Sardaukar and the Arrakians. Those four places were so appealing, and when you read a book like that, your mind goes to a place and designs in your head, like we all do when we read. We all see our own movie. It was such an opportunity to be asked to do a groundbreaking, epic film like this. Where even though it was made before, you’re kind of the first one out of the block again. All of it was very exciting.

How does the role of costume designer begin?

Bob Morgan: The first thing is a meeting with the director, and a discussion and reading the script, and then a discussion about what their vision is for the film. Denis is amazing and probably one of the most collaborative people I’ve ever worked with. He’s very collaborative, we went back and forth a lot and had many discussions. He loves being involved and he would come over to the costume department and say, when we were in Budapest ‘I’m right across the lot, I’ll just come over, I want to see it, I want to see you’ he was so excited which is infectious and makes us excited!

The wonderful thing about Denis (there are many, many, many wonderful things), is that he’s one of the kindest people in the world but he gives you parameters. What it is, what it isn’t. He knew what it was and what it wasn’t. We didn’t look at it as science fiction. We looked at it as a historical tale in the future. So knowing what it is and what it isn’t, gives you a wide frame of creativity in between to explore what we felt it was.

He also amassed this group of creative people like [Production Designer] Patrice Vermette and [Hair & Makeup Designer] Donald Mowat and all these different artists. Then the cast too, which was so phenomenal…!

Jacqueline West: My first job was nailing the stillsuit. Because it was just such a seminal part of the film and so important for Denis and so perfectly described by Frank Herbert – what it did what it had to do. It was a survival suit, we’ll probably need one in Los Angeles soon [haha!] but that’s where we started. We brought on Keith Christensen, who’s a brilliant concept artist, who both Bob and I had worked with before. He started working on the stillsuit and we both sat with him and we went over all the details that are described in the book.

Then we sent maybe four or five renditions to Denis, and Denis has incredible instincts and he reacts very viscerally when he likes something. So until you get that ‘I deeply love it Jacqueline, you keep moving’, you just have to keep at it. He was my guide, so to speak. Because he had lived with it for so long, since he was 12, and had such a feeling of wanting to make it real and grounded and not so fantastical. By this time in the universe, 10,000 years from now, computers are gone and it had to be believable that it actually ran mechanically. Like it’s powered by the musculature of the body.

There were so many bodies to fit, for it to look good on from Rebecca Ferguson, I think she’s 5ft 4in. To Jason Momoa, who’s 6 ft 5in! There was a range and it had to look good on everyone. It had to also have all of the pockets and the valves and the tubing and really be believable that you could function on recycled human wastewater.

So then after we had a drawing that Denis deeply loved, we took it to Ironhead [studio], Jose Fernandez. He does a lot of the most brilliant sculptures and it was so beautiful and Denis just flipped! So then we sent that to Budapest and Bob went there. I stayed here and designed all the uniforms and the soft costumes for Jessica. Bob went ahead and hired everybody, got a factory set up to start producing the stillsuit, because that was going to have to go first to Jordan and we needed so many of them.

Then it all kind of fell into place from there. I had a level of trust from Denis by that point and I had Bob at my side making sure that everything worked and got produced. That’s how it went. So I didn’t let it overwhelm me. There were 400 specialty costumes and 2000 plus costumes in the movie and I just took it a day at a time.

Dune is full of action and stunts – how much practicality comes into the design process of a costume?

Bob Morgan: I never work that way. My philosophy has always been that form follows function. So knowing what the costume needs to do, or what that character would need to do, or what is the environment that that army lives in? What is their station in life? What are the needs? What does a soldier need? A soldier needs protection, a soldier needs places to put things. A soldier needs camouflage. A soldier needs a lot of things. So those elements then start to help shape what that could be. Then the design follows that. Then it makes sense. You don’t see random things stuck on costumes that you wonder what that was for. That’s my approach.

I don’t think about the stunts, although later you after you’ve designed a costume, you may have to make adjustments because of the needs of the costume. Or the needs of the action or the needs of the stunt performer or visual effects – you may have to make adjustments to that.

What’s your favourite part about being a costume designer?

Jacqueline West: It’s the sittings, the initial fittings with the actors. We had such consummate great actors on this. I mean, Stellan Skarsgard…  I’ve always wanted to work with him! They were wonderful, absolutely wonderful, really character-driven actors.

It’s funny, my first period film was Quills in London and when I first fit Geoffrey Rush and he got into The Marquis de Sade’s costume he became the marquis all of a sudden. His whole stature and his posture, everything changed. When you see an actor transform… I always say costumes are the bridge from the actor to the character. When you see an actor transform in front of your eyes and start moving differently and becoming the character that’s the most gratifying.

What was your most challenging aspect when working on Dune?

Jacquline West: I guess coming up with the different worlds and totally different looks for each world. The Harkonnens are obviously the goths and the dark side and that’s hard to do without being overarching. Create the dark side but still make them compelling and believable and not just baddies. I came up with this term early on for Denis – I thought to produce the future 10,000 years from now, with no computers, nothing. It’s a world starting over, that I would go to the past. So I came up with this term of ‘modieval’ and I really went to medieval times. With the exception of Duke Leto’s world on Caladan, which I based on the Romanovs. Because I thought that that was a family in decline, that everything was being taken away from. So there would be a subliminal connection with the audience. They had, I think, one of the most beautiful attires in Europe. They were simple. They weren’t baroque or flamboyant in the monarchy. It was very staid and proper and simple.

So I use the Romanovs for Caladan – the dark green, because it’s a green planet. For the Harkonnens, for Giedi Prime, I know that Jodorowsky was using [HR] Giger and I was influenced by that, but I made it much more medieval. I went to drawings of medieval monks of dark insects. So that Harkonnen helmet is like a big ant head and then I used a lot of textured motifs stamped into the leather on their armour that would reflect the world of spiders. Because when you read into Frank Herbert’s notes on Dune, Baron Harkins mother was the Black Widow.

You really have to go to Frank Herbert. There are all these onion skin layers and you peel them away and you start thinking about what his inspirations were for the Sardaukar, they’re from the planet Salusa Secundus. That stands for the SS and he even makes references to that. So they had kind of a Nazi-esque feeling. The Fremen are like the French Resistance. So they’re going to be camouflaged and practical and living behind the scenes and in the shadows. So I tried to create worlds for each of these houses.

Also colour palettes. The Arrakians are based in the Saharan desert for me so I used a lot of Tuareg references from Morocco from the Tuaregs from the salt trails of Morocco. So I approached it like that. I approached each house as a different planet, a different entity, a different feeling and a different colour palette.

Bob Morgan: You wear so many different hats [being a costume designer]. Each one of those hats is challenging and wonderful in its own way. Finding a crew, especially with the size and scope, and the talents that we needed, is a challenge. It is a busy film business and at that time, the available artisans and people that you need, get spread thinner and thinner as the business gets bigger and bigger. The more streaming services, the more content that’s being made. it thins the herd of what you’re really looking for in those people.

Luckily, I’m not a spring chicken [haha!]. I’ve worked a lot over the years and had very good relationships with many people. I’m fortunate – knock on wood – that I can call on tremendous people I’ve worked with in the past and usually if they’re not available, if I’m lucky, they’ll make themselves available. So one of the biggest challenges, I think, is staffing with the correct people.

There are all kinds of things that are challenging but I love a challenge and for this one, I guess our challenge was time and logistics. We knew we were short on time. We knew we were going to shoot in Budapest and in Jordan. But I’ve had some very wonderful mentors in my life, who have told me ‘not everything shoots the first day. So, do what’s first, first and keep an eye on the campfire in the distance and make sure if it’s getting too close to you that you figure out how to put it out’.

At what point does the role of costume designer finish? Are you there tweaking elements of the costume until filming finishes?

Bob Morgan: I was there until the last day of shooting and then we did some additional photography. I was there to the last day of shooting for that.

Your role as costume designer is many things. It is creating, designing, manufacturing and making sure it works. But then also, the final piece of that is to be on set when it’s established and when it’s being shot, to make sure that it is being dressed and shot in a way that you intended.

Also, to be there in case they say ‘can we take that off? Can we add something to it?’. Because things change in the moment. We have an amazing team on set, amazing costumers and craftsmen and we’re always standing by just in case things change or we need to make an adjustment. So your role is to stay there until it’s done and everyone’s happy.

Finally, we can’t leave without asking… what’s your favourite costume in Dune?

Bob Morgan: I love so many of the costumes. It’s like ‘which is your favourite child?’. You put your heart and soul into these different worlds and they are so different. The Harkonnens are so different from the Atreides, are so different from the Arrakians are so different from the Sardaukar. Like I said – four points on a compass. They’re the same compass, but each had distinct properties to them.

I love so many of the costumes – Jessica’s costumes. I love the Atreides uniforms. I love the armour for the Harkonnens, Sardaukar, The Bene Gesserit… Each one did what it needed to do in a beautiful way and I felt we achieved what we were going for.

But I did love… it was one of the very last things we did and it’s the very beginning of the film, the Herald of the Change and the Spacing Guild. It was one of the very last costumes we made. I just thought it was such a beautiful and powerful image when they came out of the ship, and were marching across to meet the Duke and Jessica. I thought that that was one of my very favourite costumes. It just had such a regal and mysterious old-world look to it. It was one of those goosebump moments when you’ve worked so hard to get it all together – it had some complexity to it with the dome and the robes – and as they came marching down it just gave me a little goosebumbs. I still get very excited when I see that on set and, when I saw it on film!

Jacqueline West: Okay, I have to say this and not just because you’re calling me from England, but I had the most incredible artistic crew and they were all from London. Almost everybody except maybe Gergely in Budapest who actually produced the Sardaukar armour in his sculpting factory. But even that was designed by Simon Brindle, a brilliant artist who stood over the torso of that costume until he was going to drive me crazy! Then all of a sudden it came all came together in one moment and everyone was thrilled. With the Sardaukars (they were based on the Templars) I had David Bethell, who is an incredible sculptor, artist, and his assistant, Ruben… everyone was from England. Helen Beasley Rachel Freire. All the people who worked in actually constructing this.

But the one thing, the one costume I have to say, is the metal veil for Lady Jessica as she gets off. Bryony Tyrrell worked on it the whole movie. It was all hand-linked, all to fit her face and the arm pieces. So brilliant. She’s a true artist. She just did the most perfectly obsessive rendition and it was all taken from medieval paintings. They actually have a picture of her doing it at Warner Brothers here in Los Angeles. She worked on it the whole movie and Bob says it’s the most expensive costume ever made haha!

Dune is available on digital download now and 4K UHD, Blu-Ray, DVD and VOD now. Read our review here.

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There have been a few attempts to adapt Frank Herbert’s seminal sci-fi classic (including, famously, David Lynch who disowned his own Eighties version) and now’s the turn for visionary French director Denis Villeneuve (Arrival, Blade Runner: 2049.)

With cinematography that could burn your retinas (in a good way) we couldn’t wait to sit down with the movie’s Director of Photography, Greig Fraser, to find out more about his process and what his favourite scene is…

So, you get the call that you’re going to be the Director of Photography on the new Dune adaptation, what do you do first?

First of all, you go into the corner and you vomit. That’s the first thing to do [haha]! No, obviously you don’t. When you get the phone call from Denis Villeneuve, you’ve got to stay poised and professional. Maybe put it on silent when you vomit…

The first thing after I got off the call was I went ‘oh, geez, this is big’. I remember where I was. I was in a parking lot when I was talking to him and I was pacing up and down looking at the lines on the road going ‘oh dear’ because he was talking about how much he loved this thing. I was like ‘this is the unmakeable film’! You know, they talked about this being the unmakeable book.

What was great about it was that I didn’t have a back story or back history with this movie, with this book. I hadn’t read it when I was a kid. So I didn’t have that passionate love that a lot of our team had. I actually didn’t feel at a disadvantage to that because I didn’t have a picture of what this thing would look like.

What was really lovely was that Denis did. He’s had a passion for this thing since he was 14. So he clearly had a vision. I don’t know if you’ve seen any of Denis’ other movies, but he’s got bloody good taste. So when he says to me, I recommend you try this, this or this… he was very, very collaborative. He didn’t say this is how we’re doing it, and this is my way or the highway. He was like, ‘can we try this? Could it be that?’

I became this kind of malleable device that effectively took his vision and turned it into something. Which is effectively what my job is! I can walk into any film with my opinions, but ultimately if they don’t align with the director’s, then guess who is going to win that discussion? Right? It’s not me. So I had to become in alignment with him.

Dune is a huge story with numerous planets, complex technology, various religions and civilizations. Was it daunting to create such a layered world?

It was in hindsight. When people ask me about it, I’m like ‘yeah, it was daunting’ but the biggest thing that was daunting was how much passion my collaborators had for it and how important it was not to get it wrong. Obviously that was more pressure on Denis because he was leading the crew but we all felt this overwhelming passion to not get it wrong.

There had been obviously discussion in the past about the film being hard to make and there’s the whole version that didn’t get made and so it comes with baggage. Not every film comes with baggage, some films people don’t know about when they get released and they get surprised. This one had some baggage and that was a huge pressure that we all put on ourselves.

So from my perspective, I just made sure I became super focused. I was like, ‘alright, everything I’ve learned up to this point, is now going to lead me to make this movie’. Everything; the way that I light, my crew and my health, my mental health, my physical health. All those things that go along with a production that people don’t often talk about. Like we all had to stay super fit and super healthy. When everyone’s going out Friday night, we’re like ‘no, I’m not, I won’t come out’. So those types of things, we all were aligned to try and make the best film possible.

That’s a lot going on! How do you keep yourself organised?

Thankfully, I have a great crew, so there are a lot of things that I don’t need to worry about, which is really good for me because I’m not the most organised person! I’m not the most organised person but what I am good at doing is blocking out everything and focusing and using my instinct. Listening to different parts of your head versus your heart.

There’s a whole argument about ‘is your head talking or your heart talking?’. Some people have a hard time determining what is talking to them, but I’ve been trying to get better at focusing on what my instincts say. So I have a lot of great people taking care of things that really would distract me from the bigger picture.

What element of your job do you like the most?

I love the entire process. But I love anytime there’s an honesty and intimacy to the camera. I do a lot of operating myself where I can and I think there’s a really spiritual opportunity that you have with an actor in front of a camera. In a real location in a real space, doing the real thing.

Obviously we’re not on Arrakis. We were in Abu Dhabi or in Jordan, but we’re on set, we’re in sand dunes. All you can see are sand dunes. But having that bond with the actors and the director, and the camera. There is this triangle of trust that goes on there where the director’s swerving the actors to get them into the right mindset and to do the right action. As the camera, you’re recording that. Otherwise it doesn’t exist. No one sees it unless I turn up for work, or the person that I play in the film, which is a cameraman, turns up for work. Otherwise that becomes a story that’s written to the ages. So, I find that quite powerful. Particularly when there is a raw honesty to the drama, and that’s intimacy. It’s not big stuff and blowing stuff up (although that’s fun). But it’s not that. It’s the intimacy of humans, dealing with humans.

What scene are you most proud of in Dune?

Well, I’m a bit hesitant to say. There’s a number of things I really love. I love the scene with the Gom Jabbar and I love the scene in the nexus, in the lab; Duncan Idaho’s last stand. But I also love those little intimate moments of Paul and Jessica, in the desert by themselves. I love that. I just love those two characters and that intimacy that they have, on the rocks, getting dressed and then going through and sitting down and taking a breath and seeing the sand worms. It’s just so intimate. I love it.

Dune is available on digital download now and 4K UHD, Blu-Ray, DVD and VOD on 31st January. Read our review here.

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There have been a few attempts to adapt Frank Herbert’s seminal sci-fi classic (including, famously, David Lynch who disowned his own Eighties version) and now’s the turn for visionary French director Denis Villeneuve (pictured above, left, with actor Javier Bardem who plays Stilgar) who’s no stranger to sci-fi, having directed 2016’s Arrival and Blade Runner: 2049. 

A true passion project for Villeneuve (who’s also credited as co-screenwriter), we sat down with him to discuss his version of Dune (which encompasses the first half of the novel) his love of Frank Herbert, deleted scenes and what’s in store for a potential Dune part two…

How did your journey start with Dune?

At the time I think I was shooting Blade Runner [2049], I knew that somebody was about to get the rights to the book, and Dune has always been a dream of mine. To make a new adaptation of Dune has been an old dream.

So I just said it out loud in an interview A journalist asked me ‘what would be my dream project?’ and spontaneously I said Dune, because it’s true. I also knew that the rights would soon be acquired and I wanted to make sure, out loud, that people knew I was interested in being part of the conversation if such a thing happened.

I then got a phone call from Mary Parent [producer] at Legendary asking me if I would like to meet her to talk about the adaptation!

Frankly, it was probably the fastest meeting I’ve ever had in my life. I got into her office, we shook hands and said ‘let’s do this together’. That was it. Mary has the best reputation in the business, she’s a producer, she had just finished The Revenant with [Alejandro G.] Iñárritu and I knew that she was the real deal. She’s someone that is filmmaker-oriented. She’s a true filmmaker, and she had in her hands my favourite book and she wanted to work with me, so it was an easy decision to make!

Are there any other dream projects you’d like to say in this interview to get you a meeting?

Haha, I think I have enough on my plate, but thank you!

Well if you ever need us…!

You say that Dune is your favourite book and it’s one you’ve always wanted to adapt. What is it about this book or this world that that really made you want to do this adaptation?

It’s the way Frank Herbert created an ecosystem, and explored biology as a backdrop for this world, for Dune’s world that still to this day mesmerises me.

I’m in deep love with biology, with the study of life and this idea that you could articulate a science fiction story through biology, I thought it was absolutely mesmerising. It’s also the way he explored the notion of spirituality in contact with nature, that I thought was pretty poetic and powerful.

Was there any particular element of the book you felt you must have in your adaptation?

Yes. I specifically tried to protect everything that was linked with the ecosystems, again everything that involved the creatures, or the plants, or the logic of the way the living form of the planet is portrayed in the book.

I tried to stay as close as possible to the description, and their interaction and the complexity of it. I tried to protect that, and I tried also to make sure that the spiritual elements that are linked with those creatures will be present in the film.

As a fan of the book, was there any particular element that you were excited to see on the big screen?

Everything involving the Bene Gesserit, the Reverend Mothers, Lady Jessica. This female sisterhood. I thought the idea of this female power was very original and contemporary and I was very excited to bring it to the screen.

Also, everything involving the Fremen culture. These people that are living in the deep desert that were able to adapt, that were able to develop technologies, that were able to design strategies in order to survive in the deep desert. I thought that was very inspiring. Everything involving the Fremen culture I was really excited to design and to capture with the camera.

Frank Herbert’s book is incredibly complex – how did you ensure the balance was right to cover all of those elements in your adaptation?

It was all about the screenwriting and I didn’t do that alone. I was working with John Spaihts and Eric Roth on the screenplay, and we took months and months if not years to find that balance.

The idea was that I wanted the deep arc for fans like me to be pleased with the adaptation, to recognise Frank Herbert’s poetry, the strength of the novel, the complexity of the ideas. At the same time, I wanted audience members that will never read the book, who will have known nothing about Dune, to feel welcome and to understand the story. So, to find that equilibrium was long and tricky.

Are there any deleted scenes you wish were in the movie and should we look forward to any particular deleted scenes in the home entertainment release?

I never put deleted scenes in Blu-rays. Why? Because when it’s out of the movie it’s because it’s dead. And if it’s not in the movie, there’s a specific reason why.

What you see on the screen right now is the director’s cut.

Were there scenes that were painful to cut? Of course, there’s a lot of scenes. There are some moments with Stilgar [Javier Bardem] in the deep desert, that I had to remove.

There’s a moment where Gurney Halleck [Josh Brolin], is playing a song, which was very sad. That was one of my favourite moments that I had to remove because I decided myself that it didn’t fit in that first part. But that’s part of the journey of editing a movie, you are killing your darlings!

What is it about genre that really calls out to people to want to explore on the big screen?

I don’t know if I can speak for others but for me, sci-fi allows me to think about reality. To be in contact with reality, but with a distance that makes it more digestible. To explore difficult themes that are more abrasive, or subjects that are more difficult. Like, for instance, in Dune, religion. But in a way that is more poetic and more playful maybe.

I think as humans, it’s healthy to have a representation of ourselves in the future. To foresee the problems that might come to us, and, also to see ourselves present in the future. I think it’s very healthy. It brings hope.

Frank Herbert wrote Dune back in 1965 – what is it about this particular story that’s kept audienced hooked for all these years?

I think that it all goes to the genius of Frank Herbert. I think he wrote a novel being inspired by the 20th century. I think when he wrote his novel he was trying to make a portrait of the state of the world at the beginning of the Sixties. Being inspired by the impact of colonialism, by the overexploitation of natural resources, by the danger of blending religion and politics together… These topics sadly became just more relevant, then as time went by, they became more prominent. I think that if you read the book today. It feels sadly more relevant.

What can you tell us about part two of Dune?

I will say at this point, we are very advanced, of course, because doing part one, I knew where we would go with part two, but there is no spoiler alert, in the way that the book has been available for 60 years!

But I will say that the first part was really a way to introduce the world to the audience, and now that this introduction has been done, the second part will be playtime!

It’s just going to be having fun with the world and it will definitely be more cinematic and a pleasure to make. I hope it will happen, and if it does, I think it’s going to be kind of awesome!

What do you want audiences to take away from Dune?

That’s up to them. I mean it’s like misnomers in poetry and I don’t want to impose things on the audience’s minds. Of course, I express things in the movie from the book and they’re my concerns regarding the world, my apprehension of the future, but I want people to be free to take whatever they want from the movie. I think it’s more the way it should be.

Dune is out in cinemas now from Warner Bros Entertainment. Read our review here.

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“What’s in the box?” well, if we’re talking about Arrow Video’s new limited edition Blu-ray box-set of David Lynch’s Dune, then it is certainly the opposite of pain!

Yes the 1984 classic is now available to take home in this amazing two-disc box set complete with a 4K restoration and lots of bonus content, and we have a copy to give away!

Following a notorious aborted attempt by Alejandro Jodorowsky in the 1970s, Frank Herbert’s bestselling sci-fi epic Dune finally made it to the big screen as the third film by emerging surrealist wunderkind David Lynch, featuring an all-star cast that includes several of Lynch’s regular collaborators.

The year is 10,191, and four planets are embroiled in a secret plot to wrest control of the Spice Melange, the most precious substance in the universe and found only on the planet Arrakis. A feud between two powerful dynasties, House Atreides and House Harkonnen, is manipulated from afar by ruling powers that conspire to keep their grip on the spice. As the two families clash on Arrakis, Duke Atreides’ son Paul (Kyle MacLachlan, in his screen debut) finds himself at the centre of an intergalactic war and an ancient prophecy that could change the galaxy forever.

Though perhaps not quite appreciated upon its release, Lynch’s Dune is now a bonafide cult classic and its astonishing production design and visual effects can now be appreciated anew in this spellbinding 4K restoration, accompanied by hours of comprehensive bonus features.

Want to be in with a chance of winning this limited edition box set on Blu-ray? Simply answer the question below…

This competition closes on 22 September so get those answers in now!

Arrow Video’s Dune Limited Edition Blu-ray is available now. Order yours here.

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We have been waiting for a long time for a second glimpse at Denis Villeneuve’s Dune, since the first trailer was released last September (didn’t catch it? Watch it here).

Now, the follow-up trailer has been released, revealing plenty of action, sand and a few secrets, all alongside a snippet of Hans Zimmer’s beautiful score.

Watch the trailer here…

Dune tells the story of Paul Atreides, a brilliant and gifted young man born into a great destiny beyond his understanding, who must travel to the most dangerous planet in the universe to ensure the future of his family and his people. As malevolent forces explode into conflict over the planet’s exclusive supply of the most precious resource in existence—a commodity capable of unlocking humanity’s greatest potential—only those who can conquer their fear will survive.

The film stars Timothée Chalamet (Little Women), Rebecca Ferguson (Stephen King’s Doctor Sleep), Oscar Isaac (the Star Wars franchise), Josh Brolin (Avengers: Infinity War), Stellan Skarsgård (Avengers: Age of Ultron), Dave Bautista (Guardians of the Galaxy), Stephen McKinley Henderson (Devs), Zendaya (Spider-Man: Homecoming), Chang Chen (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon), David Dastmalchian (Blade Runner 2049), Sharon Duncan-Brewster (Rogue One: A Star Wars Story), with Charlotte Rampling (Assassin’s Creed), Jason Momoa (Aquaman), and Javier Bardem (Mother!).

Dune will be released nationwide on 21st October 2021 by Warner Bros. Pictures

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