Pierre Morel, the French director who slammed around his actors with the firework action films like District B13 and Taken has just signed on to do the impossible: make another film out of the epic sci-fi novel "Dune." For those who aren't aware of the book, "Herbert's novel -- about a galactic struggle to control the supply of a valuable spice found only on the desert planet Arrakis -- remains the biggest-selling sci-fi novel, and it's still enormously popular."
Paramount Pictures has just signed Morel to direct the film, with duties on tinkering the script also. Morel will be working on an adaptation first developed by former tentative director Peter Berg and Josh Zeutmer (Zeutmer is working on a fourth Jason Bourne movie also). Variety reports that another writer to "Dune" will be hired soon.
Originally, a July 1, 2011 date was set for release when Peter Berg was on board (but he went over and decided to work on a Battleship movie instead). It is unclear whether this date is still in sights by the studio.
Morel will be taking on a job that was once attempted by David Lynch, but that 1984 film was not a financial success. (Fun fact: Jodoworsky was signed on to direct a 10-hour feature adaptation with the likes of Orson Welles, Geraldine Chaplin, Salvador Dali, David Carradine, Gloria Swanson, Mick Jagger, and Alain Delon, but that never came to fruition.)
Fans of the book can exhale at least one sigh of relief, as the director is said to be a "longtime fan" who travelled with this own "well-worn copy of the novel to his meetings at Paramount."
In addition to Dune, Morel is also working on a sequel to Taken, and is in the "early development stages" of a film called Pursuit, an action thriller about a conflict photographer named Jason Howe. His next film, From Paris With Love, starring John Travolta and Jonathan Rhys-Meyers comes out February 5, 2010.
What do you think? Does a man who works in tight spaces with parkour performers and lots of gunfire have a chance at making the world's first financially successful adaptation of "Dune"? Or is Morel over his head? For those who haven't read the book or seen Lynch's film, do you have any interest in seeing this new version?
Source: Variety