Paul Atreides is Like Michael Corleone Says “Dune” Director Denis Villeneuve

We are SO READY for the upcoming Warner Bros. Pictures, Legendary Pictures release “Dune.” Seriously, it’s all we’ve thought about since it was first announced in 2017 with director Denis Villeneuve at the helm. It’s worth noting that the Oscar-nominated filmmaker was saying as early as 2016 that he dreamed of bringing the world of Arrakis back to the big screen.

Villeneuve has a very specific vision for his take on the seminal Frank Herbert classic, saying this will be the adaptation of his dreams to Yahoo Movie News back in 2017:

“David Lynch did an adaptation in the ’80s that has some very strong qualities. I mean, David Lynch is one of the best filmmakers alive, I have massive respect for him. But when I saw his adaptation, I was impressed, but it was not what I had dreamed of, so I’m trying to make the adaptation of my dreams. It will not have any link with the David Lynch movie. I’m going back to the book, and going to the images that came out when I read it.”

That’s not to say Denis isn’t taking inspiration from an unlikely-but-totally-understandable source- Francis Ford Coppola‘s masterpiece, “The Godfather.”

Directly from Empire Magazine’s new feature on “Dune” from their current issue, out now:

“Paul has been raised in a very strict environment with a lot of training, because he’s the son of a Duke and one day… he’s training to be the Duke. But as much as he’s been prepared and trained for that role, is it really what he dreams to be? That’s the contradiction of that character. It’s like Michael Corleone in The Godfather – it’s someone that has a very tragic fate and he will become something that he was not wishing to become.”

“His survival depends on being able to make the right decisions and adapt to different dangerous situations. It’s a very beautiful story about someone that becomes empowered,” the director explains. “Like any young adult he is looking for his identity and trying to understand his place in the world, and he will have to do things that none of his ancestors were able to do in order to survive. He has a beautiful quality of being curious about other people, of having empathy, something that will attract him towards other cultures, and that’s what will save his life.”

Yes. YES. We are waiting with spice-baited breath for the first glimpse of a sand worm and a single note of Hans Zimmer’s score.

“Dune” is set to hit theaters December 18th 2020.