Despite the uncertainty of theatres reopening, Warner Bros. is still scheduling Denis Villeneuve’s Dune to be released this coming December. Now, the director has opened up about how the ongoing global health crisis has impacted his filming schedule.
During a recent Montreal-based interview promoting the Shanghai International Film Festival (via IndieWire), Villeneuve revealed that “it will be a sprint to finish the movie” now to meet the release date.
“I was planning to go back and shoot some elements later because I wanted to readjust the movie. I needed time. At the time I didn’t know that it would be a pandemic…as we were about to go back to do those elements,” Villeneuve said. “The impact was that it crushed my schedule right now. It will be a sprint to finish the movie on time right now because we were allowed to go back to shoot those elements in a few weeks…it meant also that I have to finish some elements of the movie, like VFX and the editing, being in Montreal as my crew stayed in Los Angeles.”
The director continued to explain how working remotely during the global health crisis has negatively impacted his working relationship with his editor on the film.
“I will say as a director there are things that can be done remotely to deal with technology, all the supervision of VFX with some equipment is kind of easy to do from afar… for me the big lesson of this is I thought that it would be possible to edit at a distance having my editor [Joe Walker] sharing with computers, being far from one another, but I realize how much editing is like playing music with someone and you need to be in the same room. I mean there’s something about the interaction, human interaction, spontaneity, the energy in the room. I really miss not being in the same room with my editor.”
SEE ALSO: First Dune trailer reportedly arriving in August
A mythic and emotionally charged hero’s journey, “Dune” tells the story of Paul Atreides, a brilliant and gifted young man born into a great destiny beyond his understanding, who must travel to the most dangerous planet in the universe to ensure the future of his family and his people. As malevolent forces explode into conflict over the planet’s exclusive supply of the most precious resource in existence—a commodity capable of unlocking humanity’s greatest potential—only those who can conquer their fear will survive.
Dune is directed by Denis Villeneuve (Blade Runner 2049) and sees Timothee Chalamet (Call Me By Your Name) leading the cast alongside Rebecca Ferguson (Mission: Impossible – Fallout), Oscar Isaac (Star Wars: The Last Jedi), Dave Bautista (Avengers: Infinity War), Stellan Skarsgard (Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again), Charlotte Rampling (Red Sparrow), Zendaya (Spider-Man: Far From Home), Javier Bardem (Loving Pablo), Jason Momoa (Aquaman), Josh Brolin (Avengers: Endgame), Stephen McKinley Henderson (Fences), Sharon Duncan-Brewster (Sex Education), and Chang Chen (The Assassin).
