Bro-core director Peter Berg has three big projects in the works, his ummm, “adaptation” of the Milton Bradley board game “Battleship” (can’t wait to see Pacino or someone exasperate, “You sank my….!”), a “Hercules” movie, and a remake of Frank Herbert’s tedious sci-fi classic “Dune” that was once butchered and made utterly bizarre by David Lynch, clearly out of his element on a studio picture (apparently it was either this or wrecking ‘Jedi’; guess he felt sand worms and not Ewoks were more up his alley, and please don’t say his director’s cut is all that much better, either).
But Berg, he of the fast-moving, rather masculine and brawny filmmaking, realizes “Dune,” is rather boring for today’s audiences as it’s written now. In fact, he all but admits he’s never read the novel.
“[The book] was much more muscular and adventurous, more violent and possibly even a little bit more fun,” Berg told Sci-Fi Wire about the differences between Lynch’s movie and the novel. “I think those are all elements of my experience of the book that can be brought in without offending the die-hard fans of the Bene Gesserit and Kwisatz Haderach novel. There’s a more dynamic film to be made.”
[Uhh, what “Dune” is he talking about? The bastard continuation books by Herbert’s kid? Cause it sure doesn’t sound like the thinly-disguised look at the Middle East politics of oil and religion snoozer we remember.]
Translation? “Dune even puts me to sleep, let’s modernize it with action and blow up some space worms real good.” Fans of Herbert’s’ glacially paced, sub-plot heavy books will probably cry heresy at a film that actually propels forward and is, you know, thrilling and exciting, but surely this is the only way contemporary audiences will care.
Also, we kinda like the corny Toto score of Lynch’s “Dune” for perverse reasons (one being that David Lynch actually believed Toto would make for a good band to score a torpid sci-fi film), but we would highly recommend for Berg’s sake that he take a far different route.
Some of our writers would surely like us to mention that acid-fried crackpot director Alejandro Jodorowsky (midnight madness awful-trash masterpieces like “The Holy Mountain“) was once set to make the best “Dune” adaptation (best movie?) of all time — which would have included Salvador Dali, Orson Welles, Gloria Swanson, David Carradine, Geraldine Chaplin, Alain Delon, Hervé Villechaize, Mick Jagger, a score by Pink Floyd and design by Moebius and H.R. Geiger — but the planets never aligned and so it never came to pass (and/or Hollywood thought, “wait, that’s too good of an idea”).
Jodowrowsky has talked about the project (perhaps hinting at finally taking his stab at it, or perhaps to humor drooling journos) over the years, but we have more of a shot of scoring Leighton Meester than he does of ever getting the rights to that project again. Anywhoo, “Dune”: Peter Berg, not slow and dull, 2012? Sounds like the board game will come first. Congrats to Berg for becoming the new Wolfgang Petersen.