Dune Writer Says New Adaptation Is "Spectacular"

Few sci-fi novels are as beloved as Frank Herbert's Dune, which makes the task of bringing it to life for a film one that comes with a lot of pressure, yet it seems like director Denis Villeneuve was up to the task, as one of the film's writers Eric Roth recently detailed that the upcoming film is "really spectacular." The filmmaker also confirmed that he currently has no plans to write the next film in the saga, despite having already crafted a treatment for it, so he was under no obligation to praise the experience, which is currently slated to hit theaters and HBO Max on October 1st.

"[Working on Dune] was wonderful. I'd done some work for Denis on Arrival and we became kind of a little bit of soulmates," Roth detailed to Collider. "And so when Dune came along, he asked me if I would approach it. And I did, and I wrote a big, full, overwritten Eric Roth draft that had certain things special to me. It needed to be, honestly, cut down and sort of harnessed, and Denis did some of that, and they eventually brought in a writer — I was busy, so they brought in a writer named Jon Spaihts, who is a wonderful writer, who I think kept it grounded. And I think he... I don't want to say Lord of the Rings, but I think it's really pretty spectacular. He's a visionary of his own kind, Denis."

Since the early days of the project's inception, fans have been wary about how a feature film could bring to life the entire novel, especially given how David Lynch's attempts to adapt the material into one film back in the '80s was such a disappointment, with Villeneuve often clarifying that his initial film was only the first half of the book.

While Roth didn't specify where his version of the film concluded, he admitted that this initial entry ends slightly past the midway point of the book as opposed to being precisely in the middle.

"It's completely the first half," Roth confirmed. "I didn't know when we started, so I think I adapted a little more than the first half and started going into the second half of the book. But I've seen the film, it's pretty much the first half."

Dune is currently slated to hit theaters and HBO Max on October 1st.

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