Dune May Get An Animated Adaptation From This Academy Award Nominee
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This year we got a glimpse of the adaptation that could have been with the documentary about Jodoroswky’s Dune. While that could have a crazy adaptation of Frank Herbert’s classic novel, it never materialized, and we subsequently got two other, with David Lynch’s much maligned 1984 version and SciFi minseries in 2000. But just because there already a couple of versions of Dune floating around out there in the world, doesn’t mean there’s room for one more, and this new idea that’s bouncing around is an interesting one indeed.
Academy Award nominee Ari Folman (Waltz With Bashir) is up to Dune into an animated feature, using Jodorowsky’s plan as a roadmap. Yeah, that sounds like it could be an insane good time to us too. But don’t get too excited right away, this isn’t something that’s likely to happen anytime soon, or even something that is in the works. This is just an idea that’s been proposed.
After watching Frank Pavich’s documentary, which is full of the visuals and imagery that Jodorowsky was going to base his Dune on, Folman told the folks at Den of Geek that he’s interested in finally bringing that version of the story to life. Well, to animated life. And there’s a lot to work with, as the El Topo and The Holy Mountain director amassed a ton of work on the project, including more than 300 pages worth of storyboards.
Folman is currently working on other projects, but says he does have Jodorowsky’s contact info and wants to meet with the maverick filmmaker. He said, “Well, you never know. I’m up for the challenge. I just recently got [Jodorowsky’s] email and I want to go and meet the guy […] I’m busy now with a big project, but I’ll give it a shot. I want to see that story. I’d love to see that story.”
We would like to see this too. This sounds like it could be a really cool idea. I didn’t like Folman’s last film, the live action/animation sci-fi hybrid The Congress—which hits Blu-ray and DVD on December 8—not at all, though lots of other people seem to really enjoy the film. Still, his animation style is unique and twisted enough that this could be a super interesting match between style and content. We’ll have to wait and see if anything comes of this, but you can bet we’re going to be keeping an eye out for any movement on this front.
What do you think, would you like to see an animated version of Dune? If Jodorowsky is involved, even a little, you know it’s going to be psychedelic as hell.
