[kinghtown]

I’m also a huge fan of Lynch’s Dune. Lynch, I would say, probably hates the movie because of memories of industry drama and studio pressure- more to do with having had a bad experience than the movie being actually terrible. It also almost killed his career in a way. I wonder if he had a desire to work on more big budget films in the mainstream like Spielberg throughout his career and perhaps Dune was the film which ended those dreams. Guy has like three of four legit towering masterpieces (not including twin Peaks)so his career was great despite things but I do wonder what kinds of movies he’d have ended up making if Dune was a success or if he never made Dune after The (very nearly perfect film) Elephant Man.

High concept sci-fi is consistent box office poison and while this new version of Dune looks good, and I want to see it, I don’t think it will set the world on fire. It seems to feel like YA fiction more than I’d like it to be and borrows heavily, stylistically, from Lynch’s Dune but doesn’t seem to have the same design impact as the original. The YA tone in the trailer for me feels like studio meddling. But we’ll see how good the actual movie is. Blade Runner 2 was a fine film but not quite a home run and I expect the same from Dune.

[jariel]

Totally agree, and your point about 'budget and studio' I think hits at this.

This is a 'remake' of the 'everyone is doing remakes' theme, and it's designed to make money first.

There's so much money at stake, it's hard to tell who is pushing for what and how and it's really 'something else' to ask a Director (+ team, remember, he has his own 'team' for every flick) to 'risk everything' on some high concept stuff.

So we get Lynch translated into Avengers with some modern styling and that's that.

I'm hoping that a Billionaire Herbert fan will give a project like this to someone willing to make a go of it and 'let them lose' - or - more practically - after this film is a success (and it probably will be) - we'll get the Netflix series for the remaining books, made in the UK by people who know what they are doing and at least it will be 'good TV'.

[kinghtown]

When Lucas sold Star Wars to Disney he was talking about using to money to produce medium to high budget genre films with deep fine art sensibilities with almost zero meddling which is almost never what we get from Hollywood. Unfortunately that was like ten years ago and Lucas is like totally removed from the cultural zeitgeist.

Deal makers need to be forbidden from creative decisions. One of the major studios should consider adopting a Blumhouse business model where new talent are given a very small budget to prove themselves with zero restrictions or meddling and if they can turn a profit on the Low stakes film then they are promoted to a new budget tier using the previous films profits to bankroll the next film. I truly believe the cream would rise to the top under this model and a new golden era of groundbreaking pictures would occur. Or not, we’ll never know until someone tries. I’m really hoping Blumhouse keeps going in this direction and take bigger risks.

There’s no reason why Dune couldn’t make a great movie, or any other SF book classic but it seems like once SFX and money enter the picture you get deal makers injecting weird love triangles, buddy sidekicks, Rihanna songs, whatever it takes to ruin everything. Hollywood is also super arrogant about how they have mastered storytelling so whenever they adapt something good, like let’s say the Sandman comics, they need to “fix” everything to make it really good.

[jariel]

I'm more cynical and believe that the amount of risk involved means a serious degree of risk aversion towards 'proven models' - which means boring or at best 'fun and chipper' but not 'great cinema' - like Avengers.

The 'lowest common denominator' on planet earth is actually significantly lower than merely just a US audience.

Stories have to be simple and stupid (think Transformers) in order to make a run in theaters.

They have to work across cultures.

Something like 'The Joker' can work - but that was relatively low budget - and still risky.

Avengers are basically the perfect format for today because they are fun characters, a big fanbase, and with some 'smart writing' all they need then is 'good production'. That's it. It doesn't have to be great.

Star Wars and Star Trek should fit this model but they screwed it up.

Dune and many other stories are just 'out of bounds' given the risk involved.

A lot of actors are lamenting this, and it's why we are only seeing 'remakes'. Comedies, RomComs - dying.

I think the only hope is Netflix, Disney+ etc..

Unless the theatre model changes.

[kinghtown]

I agree with much of what you say but I’m still optimistic that smart, high concept genre films can be made with integrity and turn a profit without the need for calculated compromises or a kind of censorship against anything being too cool or interesting to the point of alienating 1/2 people. But it’s possible that a film like The Matrix, as an example, is about as good as SF/Fantasy could possibly get and we should count ourselves lucky that films like that sometimes are made and become successful.

Take Starship Troopers for example. I don’t think I’ve met anyone who dislikes that movie. It almost seems like everyone between the ages of 10 and 20 when the movie came out has seen it in some form. But it seems like a movie such as Starship Troopers would be impossible now, especially with its satire intact. I often feel like we are regressing in many ways as a population of mature adults and the overall state of the film industry suggests exactly that. I remember hearing Spielberg talking about how he can’t get funding to make theatrical releases anymore. Even Spielberg has become high risk. What are we even becoming as people?

But I digress. I hope the trailer for Dune is slightly misrepresenting the film. I want fantastic cinema to make a comeback.