Legendary Entertainment Acquires Rights to Frank Herbert’s Dune Saga

Perhaps the fourth time will be better than the third – Variety is reporting that Legendary Entertainment has secured the film and television rights for the classic science fiction Dune properties from the author’s estate.

The deal apparently allows for development of both television as well as film adaptations, however Legendary has not yet commented if they’ll be pursuing both avenues or if they will be just doing one.

This will mark the fourth time that Dune has been attempted to bring to screen: the first being the aborted Alejandro Jodorowsky version, the second being the 1984 David Lynch film version, and the most recent being a pair of Syfy-produced mini-series covering the first two books of the series from the early 2000’s. The film version has become something of a cult-classic, with all of David Lynch’s somewhat eccentric adaptations (what else would one expect from the creator of Twin Peaks and Blue Velvet), with the television version being more true to the books but hampered by trying to create something of such a large scope with a relatively modest budget.

We can still hope that Toto will return to create the new score.