Out on the publicity trail for From Paris With Love, his latest headkicking actioner starring John Travolta and Jonathan Rhys Meyers, director Pierre Morel was happy to give Tribeca some idea of the approach he'll be taking on his next big project (and they don't come much bigger): Dune.
Asked if he plans to crowbar any Taken-style action into Frank Herbert's mammoth space opera, Morel was careful to stress that Dune is "not about action, it's not the point", but did admit that he's been musing along those lines. "I do think that there's a lot of scenes that are not described in the books, just mentioned, like the bad guys attacking something, and it might make sense to include those in the movie. That would maybe call for some action scenes, yes."
Dune has, of course, defeated directors before: not least Alejandro Jodorowsky and David Lynch. The sheer weight of the novel's politics, combined with Herbert's penchant for interior monologues, makes the novel a nightmare for adaptation, although the Sci-Fi Channel's two mini-series, covering the first three books, were reasonably successful.
Epic sci-fi movies kind of require giant setpieces. It's traditional! But if Morel is planning to spend significant screen time on massive Harkonnen/Sardaukar pitched battles and sandworm-mounted Fremen attacks, he runs the risk of having to drastically simplify and dumb-down his incredibly rich source material.
Thankfully he seems well aware of this: "I've read the novel ten times, so I want to stay true to it. There's such a fanbase. You can't mess with that."
Very early days yet. The process of hammering out a screenplay (in cahoots with Joshua Zetumer) will start later this month.