After four years of development, Paramount has given up the rights to adapting Frank Herbert’s best-selling sci-fi novel Dune. The studio and the rights holders came to a mutual agreement to let the rights lapse, relieving the studio of trying to get the film made.
Director Peter Berg (Hancock) was originally attached to direct, but subsequently dropped out.
A year ago, director Pierre Morel signed on to take over directorial duties, with screenwriter Chase Palmer rewriting a previous draft of the script by Josh Zetumer.
Richard P. Rubinstein, who controls the rights to Dune had this to say:
-"Paramount’s option has expired and we couldn’t reach an agreement. I’m going to look at my options, and whether I wind up taking the script we developed in turnaround, or start over, I’m not sure yet.”
Rubenstein boils the failure of Paramount to move the film into production down to budgetary issues. He sounds optimistic about the future of Dune, characterizing Paramount’s decision to walk away as simply another set-back.
While Rubinstein says that Dune currently has no commitments or attachments, Deadline says that Rubinstein and producer Kevin Misher were both fond of Morel and Palmer’s take on the material, with the two cranking out a quality script that successfully condensed the thick source material into feature length.
Rubinstein says that he’ll probably re-approach the duo once he’s able to secure financing for the flick.
Though probably with so many superheroes movies lately, this was the project that we where most interested in, we can say that after so many years of induced lengthening, any future delay comes easy now.
Yet, we hope that such a project, with such an impact, will find financing and a team to put the novel Dune to the screen in a manner worthy of Frank Herbert.
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