One of the most legendary Movies That Didn’t Get Made is “Dune.” Granted, “Dune” did get made… twice. Once in 1984 by David Lynch as a theatrical flick, and again in 2000 as a made-for-Sci Fi Channel miniseries. But the first serious effort to put “Dune” on the screen was in the early/mid 1970’s by French director Alejandro Jodorowsky. A *vast* amount of work went into this effort, which eventually failed due – shockingly – to financial reasons. But had it come to pass, it would be describable by two words: In. Sane.
Consider:
The script would have worked out to a 14 hour movie
Baron Harkonnen: Orson Welles.
Emperor Shaddam IV: Salvador Fricken’ Dali
Music: Peter Gabriel and Pink Flloyd
Design work: H.R. Giger (went on to design the “Alien”) and Chriss Foss and Jean Giraud (“Moebius”)
After all the work and money, it fell through. If you read Jodorowsky’s description on the project HERE, you can kinda see why… Jodorowsky was an unfortunate combination of Self Important Dick and Crazy Artistic Lunatic, just the sort of thing that can, if all goes well, produce pure genius, but more often creates failure. Still, it’s interesting to contemplate.
A new documentary, Jodorowsky’s Dune, is about to be released. It would be interesting if a good-sized book of the art created for the movie – thousands of illustrations – would also be released. See the trailer HERE.