'Dune' Gets New Director, Packs Bags for Paris

"The spice must flow...and by spice, I mean production on the new remake/reboot/re-adaptation of Dune because we've been talking about this thing for what feels like ages and it's starting to get embarrassing." -Frank Herbert. Or a Paramount executive. Or something. I don't know.

It's pretty old news at this point that Peter Berg abandoned the ever-troubled Dune franchise to direct the surely glorious Battleship (AKA, Big Friggin' Boats VS Aliens), but with Avatar proving that dense, strange science fiction can really shake the box office up, it was only a matter of time before this thing got rolling again with a fellow at the helm.

And that fellow is Pierre Morel, a filmmaker who brought us gravity-defying Frenchman dropkicking each other across Paris in District B-13, Liam Neeson going on a righteous murdering spree across Paris in Taken and will soon bring us John Travolta blowing lots and lots of stuff up across Paris in the appropriately titled From Paris With Love. This is the point where I really want to make a "Dune will now take place in France" joke, but my wits escape me entirely.



My initial reaction to this news? Nothing Morel has made so far even remotely suggests he can handle a science fiction epic on the scale of Dune and the thought of him taking on one of the greatest genre novels of all time leaves me a little nervous. It's a studio choice that reeks of "let's get a guy who can competently shoot action and will never challenge us in any way." This should be a Lord of the Rings event film, but I get the impression Paramount will happily settle for a basic sci-fi action movie.

Is it too late to resurrect Alejandro Jodorowsky's Dune? Will an action-ized Dune be better than the fascinating failure that is David Lynch's version? How about the incredibly faithful but stillborn Sci-Fi Channel miniseries? Is there a way to coax the versatile and talented Berg back to the project after he wraps Battleship? Discuss below.

(via EW)