DUNE’s Denis Villeneuve Says ‘Creativity Is Restricted’ In Hollywood
By Movieguide® Contributor
DUNE director Denis Villeneuve says “creativity is restricted” in today’s movie industry.
“Cinema, since its beginning, has had multiple crises,” the director said in a recent TIME interview. “There’s always an adjustment, but the river still keeps flowing. The theatrical experience is here for good. It will prevail, it will transform.”
He explained that he isn’t as worried about AI technology as others; instead, Villeneuve pointed to “the fact that we behave like algorithms, as filmmakers.”
“We’re in a very conservative time; creativity is restricted,” Villeneuve said. “Everything’s about Wall Street. What will save cinema is freedom and taking risks. And you feel the audience is excited when they see something they haven’t seen before.”
Villeneuve has previously spoken out against the movie industry, slamming Warner Bros. in a 2020 essay for Variety after learning they would be releasing all their movies, including DUNE, simultaneously on HBO Max.
“With this decision AT&T has hijacked one of the most respectable and important studios in film history,” he wrote. “There is absolutely no love for cinema, nor for the audience here. It is all about the survival of a telecom mammoth, one that is currently bearing an astronomical debt of more than $150 billion.”
The director continued, “I strongly believe the future of cinema will be on the big screen, no matter what any Wall Street dilettante says. Since the dawn of time, humans have deeply needed communal storytelling experiences. Cinema on the big screen is more than a business, it is an art form that brings people together, celebrating humanity, enhancing our empathy for one another — it’s one of the very last artistic, in-person collective experiences we share as human beings.”
Villeneuve is preparing for the release of DUNE: PART TWO, a follow-up to the massively popular DUNE, but he’s already thinking ahead to what’s next in the series. The director has said he plans to make a third movie based on the book “Dune: Messiah.”
“The screenplay’s in progress,” he told Vanity Fair. “I’m very happy where it’s going, but it’s not finished, and I don’t know how healthy it’ll be to go straight to ‘Messiah’ right away. It would be healthy to do something in between.”
Movieguide® previously reported on Villeneuve’s plans for the third DUNE movie:
In a recent interview with Empire, DUNE director Denis Villeneuve shared his hopes for a third movie to tap off a Dune trilogy.
“If I succeed in making a trilogy, that would be the dream,” Villeneuve told Empire.
While Villeneuve originally planned to create a double feature telling the story of Frank Herbert’s 1965 classic novel, he now feels he could share more of the story. Herbert wrote five sequels to the original “Dune,” fleshing out the world of Arrakis.
Villeneuve’s dream for his third and final movie is to bring Herbert’s second book, “Dune Messiah,” to movie audiences.
“‘Dune Messiah’ was written in reaction to the fact that people perceived Paul Atreides as a hero,” Villeneuve said. “Which is not what he wanted to do. My adaptation [of “Dune”] is closer to his idea that it’s actually a warning.”
