SPICE WORLD

AT ITS CORE, DUNE IS A Shakespearian parable that explores the destructive power that erupts from the clash of different economic, religious and political forces. Successfully realising the rich cinematic prospects of Herbert’s sacred text has, until now, always been difficult. An initiative of biblical proportions, it was temporarily romanced by such big-screen visionaries as David Lean, Ridley Scott and Alejandro Jodorowsky, before David Lynch lent a large dose of surrealism to the visually spectacular yet famously ill-fated 1984 feature, which the filmmaker subsequently disowned because he wasn’t given final cut.

Then came the TV adaptation, first broadcast on the Sci Fi Channel (as Syfy was known then) back in 2000. John Harrison – previously George Romero’s first AD on Creepshow and Day Of The Dead, and a director for shows like Tales From The Darkside and Earth 2 – was the writer/director behind this award-winning three-part mini-series.

“I always thought television was the best medium to attack ,” he in a 2017 interview. “As much as I like elements of David Lynch’s film, he had to condense the story in such a way to get it into his two-and-a-half hour/three-hour versions. Since I also wrote the screenplay, I was well aware of the challenges to even get it down into my three two-hour movies.