Brian Herbert Says First Draft Of New Dune Screenplay Is Finished

Brian Herbert, son of the late, great creator of the ‘Dune’ universe Frank Herbert (bless the Maker and his passing), took up the mantle of finishing his father’s legacy. He’s since become the written voice of Arrakis, continuing the saga of House Atreides and the Fremen, as well as several of his own titles and works.

Announced as a possibility last year and confirmed this year, Legendary Pictures is working on a reboot Dune film with Oscar-nominated director Denis Villeneuve on board to direct.

Today on his personal Twitter account, Brian posted that the first draft of the screenplay from Eric Roth (Forrest Gump, Munich) is completed.

We have the first draft of the DUNE screenplay from Eric Roth. I am working on it day and night, consulting closely with Kevin. We expect to send our comments to Legendary by this weekend. Lots of good stuff in the script, and things to be tweaked. I’m happy to be involved. pic.twitter.com/LL9zH7cXiN

— Brian Herbert (@DuneAuthor) November 9, 2017

It is still very early (obviously) in the process to start thinking about things such as casting, but knowing Herbert’s involvement from the get-go will make this production different than the previous versions of Dune.

There was the much-maligned (but my personal favorite thus far) David Lynch version, which gets a lot of hate for its changing of certain details revolving around the hand-to-hand Benne Gesserit fighting style into a voice modular phase weapon.

There was also the Syfy version, which also took several liberties with character introductions and placements too early in the story (*cough* Irulan at the freaking party on Caladan *cough*). It is widely regarded as the “most accurate” to date, however. The popularity prompting a sequel miniseries, Children of Dune, to be produced by the cable network.

We’ll let you know as more information about this becomes available; hopefully early casting rumors aren’t that far away.