Dune (2020)

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Royal

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The only thing about a TV or streamed series for Villeneuve is in that world writers are the ones who steer the ship, not directors. He hasn't done a lot of writing and certainly nothing episodic.
 
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Sterling

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Doesn't necessarily have to be some long ongoing series. It could be like a 6-10 episode mini series. You can cram a lot of stuff into something like that without some longterm commitment.
 

Royal

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Yeah the old school TV mini series from the 80's would sometimes have a single director. They were basically 5 hour movies broken up into hour long segments. He wouldn't have a problem filling one out if 2049 is any indication.
 

Brikker

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Isn't that what True Detective S1 did? One writer, one director for the whole thing.
 

Sterling

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Isn't that what True Detective S1 did? One writer, one director for the whole thing.
This is a good example of what I was talking about. And you could do it with a big budget for TV, but still not like a 250 million dollar movie with blockbuster expectations.
 
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Drakain

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I guess in the grand scheme of things, I could care less who the director is. I have no idea who directs all the shows I watch. As long as the story remains faithful to the book and it has great production design I'm in.
 
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Szlia

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I may have written a similar post before, but I have the feeling you guys are massively exaggerating Bladrunner's "flop." It certainly under-performed at the U.S. box-office, but between foreign box office, DVD, BluRay, VoD and TV rights, you know this film will be clearly in the black. This film is also a big critical success, both with professionals and movie-goers and it will get a bunch of nominations and awards (it already got a bunch of minor ones and is nominated for 8 BAFTAs). For the prestige and for the brand of everyone involved, it is a very good operation.
 
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Campbell1oo4

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I guess in the grand scheme of things, I could care less who the director is. I have no idea who directs all the shows I watch. As long as the story remains faithful to the book and it has great production design I'm in.

I agree, but I still can't help but get excited that Dennis Villavenue* is directing. I keep having daydreams about this Dune being like a sci-fi Sicario. I'm probably getting too hyped for this.

*I don't know French.
 
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Royal

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I may have written a similar post before, but I have the feeling you guys are massively exaggerating Bladrunner's "flop." It certainly under-performed at the U.S. box-office, but between foreign box office, DVD, BluRay, VoD and TV rights, you know this film will be clearly in the black. This film is also a big critical success, both with professionals and movie-goers and it will get a bunch of nominations and awards (it already got a bunch of minor ones and is nominated for 8 BAFTAs). For the prestige and for the brand of everyone involved, it is a very good operation.

Well yes and no. Even if you low ball it's budget towards the low end of the estimates scale at $150M it probably did a little better than break even with it's box office run of almost $260M global. It's just a matter of for whom. By Alcon's own admission it needed to do around $400M for them to be good and that's a reflection of the deals they had with their production partner Sony and the various distributors. Some of their partners were in front of them to get their money back. Alcon may eventually get theirs in the ancillary market (DVD's, VOD, etc) depending on how those deals are structured. Traditionally that is where most movies have entered the black but the big budget films aren't made these days with that as the goal since those numbers aren't as reliable as they used to be for the studios. That's supposed to be the gravy phase of the earnings for those kinds of movies.

Legendary has the movie rights to Dune and they're not a standalone operation like Alcon. They're owned by a Chinese conglomerate who may not be as willing to risk breaking even for the sake of artistic purity as Alcon seems to have been. They have distribution relationships with the major studios to adhere to as well.
 
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Kiroy

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Well yes and no. Even if you low ball it's budget towards the low end of the estimates scale at $150M it probably did a little better than break even with it's box office run of almost $260M global. It's just a matter of for whom. By Alcon's own admission it needed to do around $400M for them to be good and that's a reflection of the deals they had with their production partner Sony and the various distributors. Some of their partners were in front of them to get their money back. Alcon may eventually get theirs in the ancillary market (DVD's, VOD, etc) depending on how those deals are structured. Traditionally that is where most movies have entered the black but the big budget films aren't made these days with that as the goal since those numbers aren't as reliable as they used to be for the studios. That's supposed to be the gravy phase of the earnings for those kinds of movies.

Legendary has the movie rights to Dune and they're not a standalone operation like Alcon. They're owned by a Chinese conglomerate who may not be as willing to risk breaking even for the sake of artistic purity as Alcon seems to have been. They have distribution relationships with the major studios to adhere to as well.

Not to mention if a big budget movie goes into the black, but still falls below estimates, it's still a failure considering the risk model I imagine the real big budget movies are plugged into during the planning stages. Nobody (the large groups of entities in a movies case) drops a high risk 200m in hopes of getting a few percentage points into the black. Maybe Screamfeeder Screamfeeder has some idea but I'm sure there is a percentage over total production / advertising cost a movie needs hit for it to not be something thought about as "whoa shit we coulda lost our assholes on that never again!"
 

Screamfeeder

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Not to mention if a big budget movie goes into the black, but still falls below estimates, it's still a failure considering the risk model I imagine the real big budget movies are plugged into during the planning stages. Nobody (the large groups of entities in a movies case) drops a high risk 200m in hopes of getting a few percentage points into the black. Maybe Screamfeeder Screamfeeder has some idea but I'm sure there is a percentage over total production / advertising cost a movie needs hit for it to not be something thought about as "whoa shit we coulda lost our assholes on that never again!"

Sort of. Even a movie in the red can "make money" for the people that financed it. Hollywood Accounting is a thing for a reason. Estimates vary and producers are ALWAYS going to project higher than what it could realistically make.

When you are talking about projects in the $100m+ range you are talking about dozens of different financiers (some even from other studios) so the risk is spread out. But even if it tanks horribly, the studios insurance will cover the costs of things like pay and materials (Unions and guaranteed pay are protected for a reason in our biz).

So for example some random Producer might offer up $1,000,000.00 up front for an "Associate Producer" credit and a 0.5% backend. During production, that "Producer" is going to get paid a set rate while filming even if he does nothing more than sit at home and play Xbox. He might make a phone call here and there to chime in, and maybe not. His worth was the $1mil he offered up. This would be per his deal memo and based on P.G.A. standard rates. So he gets "paid" back some of that money as a weekly check. Now lets say his pay equals $250,000.00 during production. He is out $750,000.00 from his total investment and needs that 0.5% to come back enough to pay it. Most of the time, even with a complete bomb, the producers will make that back on initial ticket sales alone, but even if he doesn't, the insurance will pay a certain amount back (generally not all).

If the movie makes even a modest profit over the budget, then his playing Xbox might earn him a modest $100,000.00 on that 0.5% backend plus a credit to carry onto the next project along with the dozen other "Producers" that loaned the money. Now just do that x times and increase amounts across multiple projects. Some lose and some win.

Advertising is almost exclusively paid for by the studios or distributor as a corporate entity and so individual producers are not on the line for it. This is ALL depending on how the budget was worked out however and there are going to be exceptions.

TLDR - The studio could lose money, but the Producers might come out even based on their deals with the studio.
 
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Zaphid

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Honestly a big budget TV series might be a better fit than trying to cram the whole book with all its ideas into a single movie. First, you can choose where the series ends, second you can take your time with explaining the universe and as long as you can afford CGI worms, the rest of the series is mostly character driven. Besides you can easily flesh out some of the more problematic parts. I don't think this is something a movie studio would want to do as a safe, by the numbers project, better not at all.
 
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Grez

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Yeah, the last (two) Dune TV miniseries were amazing. Moar of that.


Uploader got the the parts mixed up. Watch 2 first.


 
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spronk

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Director Denis Villeneuve Says 'Dune' Will Be At Least Two Films

I rewatched a bit of Blade Runner 2049 last night off the 4k UHD and its really spectacular in 4K and ATMOS but still the Dolby IMAX experience is something I wish I could do again this year, and I watched it 3 times in theaters. I hope Denis doesn't go all Hobbit on us and make a tortured set of movies, but then again the Dune source material could easily go on for 4-6 movies no problem so 2-3 would be great if done right. 2049 is just such a masterful movie, you can feel the craftsmen and expertise in every single framed shot, last movies that reminded me of that were Mad Max and Logan so I for one can't wait to see what Denis does in Dune. I bet the box office reception of 2049 also makes him tighten his film lengths and make it more fast paced too.
 
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Blitz

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Yeah, the last (two) Dune TV miniseries were amazing. Moar of that.


Uploader got the the parts mixed up. Watch 2 first.



Finally finished the book, and excited to hear that the TV Series' are decent. Look forward to watching them.

Super happy Denis is doing two movies (or aiming to at least). Can't possibly see how you could do one movie for that book, not one that isn't 3 1/2 hrs long.
 
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BrutulTM

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David Lynch's Dune is sort of like watching "The Doors" on acid, except you don't have to take the acid.

06-dune-sting.nocrop.w710.h2147483647.jpg
 
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wamphyr

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What I am afraid of is that, in this day and age, no one wants to see and appreciate a movie about some American (Paul Atreides) becoming the new Mohammed (Muab'dib) to a bunch of Allah loving violent tribes (the fremens), who, by the way, are the good guys in this narrative.