Dune Director Reveals the Star Wars Scene That Inspired the Film

The highly-anticipated Dune from director Denis Villeneuve is finally being released next month, and the film just had its premiere at the Venice International Film Festival on Friday night. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the movie received an eight-minute standing ovation and was met with praise by many, including Oscar-winning director Chloé Zhao who helmed the upcoming Marvel film Eternals. /Film was also in attendance for the screening and took part in a roundtable with Villeneuve. During the chat, the director revealed which scene from the original Star Wars inspired him.

“When I saw the very first Star Wars in 1977 my favorite scenes were the ones that felt the most natural,” Villeneuve explained. “The one when we see the droids at the beginning — there was something about the strength of nature. I’ve been raised doing documentaries where nature is your most powerful eye and I try to bring that into Dune. Strangely, I tried to do a sci-fi movie a bit like a documentary, using nature as a strong ally instead of fighting against it.”

Dune features an impressive cast led by Timothée Chalamet as Paul Atreides. The film will also feature Rebecca Ferguson as Lady Jessica, Oscar Isaac as Duke Leto Atreides, Zendaya as Chani, Sharon Duncan-Brewster as Dr. Liet-Kynes, Jason Momoa as Duncan Idaho, Dave Bautista as Glossu Rabban, and Javier Bardem as Stilgar. Another big name on the list is Marvel Cinematic Universe star, Josh Brolin, who will be playing Gurney Halleck. During a recent chat with ACE Universe, Brolin called Dune “a cinematic masterpiece.”

“They screened the movie for us when it was finally done. And I was so blown away. I mean, I can say, I think I can safely say it’s a masterpiece,” Brolin shared. “It truly is a cinematic masterpiece, what he was able to do and hold all those characters and give all those characters their time and day but then also hold the story on top of that, and do justice to the story. And the lighting, which was done by Greg Fraser, who I ended up doing a book with, we just finished our book which is his photographs and my writing, that’s going to come out around the time that dune comes out, all this stuff. It just was one of those moments where it all comes together — No Country [For Old Men] was kind of like that, to where it was like ‘Did you have the feeling that something was going to be great?’ and you’re like, ‘No, I’m having a good time. I love doing this, but you don’t know until you see it how great it’s going to be.’”

Dune opens in theaters and will be released on HBO Max on October 22nd.