Last month, with the long-awaited release of Denis Villeneuve鈥檚 sci-fi epic 鈥淒une鈥� finally approaching, the film鈥檚 official Twitter account issued a challenge: 鈥淓xplain 鈥楧une鈥� in one sentence.鈥�

Thousands of fans of Frank Herbert鈥檚 landmark 1965 novel responded, trying to distill the sweeping saga 鈥� set in the distant future on a desert planet where powerful clans battle for control over the most precious substance in the universe 鈥� down to a few words.

Some efforts were hopelessly vague (鈥淎 story about family on an epic scale鈥�). Others were nerdily esoteric (鈥淪ubversion of the hero鈥檚 journey in the far future with psychedelic drugs and ninja nuns with an unhealthy interest in the gene pool鈥�). More than a few were jokey (鈥淪pice worms want to party but silly humans just want to make war.鈥�)

The point was clear: 鈥淒une鈥� may be one of the most revered books in the sci-fi canon, with millions of fans around the world 鈥� not a few of whom have images and quotes from it tattooed on their bodies 鈥� but it is not the easiest book to explicate to the uninitiated. And that fact only raises the already sky-high stakes for Villeneuve鈥檚 $165-million production.

Timothee Chalamet leads the cast of 鈥淒une鈥� as Paul Atreides, the son of a noble family who finds himself thrust into a deadly battle for dominion of the desolate planet Arrakis 鈥� and who may be the messianic leader that its oppressed people have long awaited. With a sprawling ensemble also including Rebecca Ferguson, Oscar Isaac, Josh Brolin, Javier Bardem, Jason Momoa, Stellan Skarsgard, Charlotte Rampling and Zendaya, 鈥淒une鈥� hits theaters and HBO Max on Oct. 22, having been pushed back nearly a year by Warner Bros. due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Filmmakers have long been drawn to 鈥淒une,鈥� dreaming of turning Herbert鈥檚 action-packed yet philosophical novel into a more serious-minded, grown-up answer to 鈥淪tar Wars.鈥� (Believing 鈥淪tar Wars鈥� had borrowed heavily from his work, if not plagiarized it, Herbert once dismissed George Lucas鈥� film as 鈥渁 comic book for the screen.鈥�)

But the very same elements of Herbert鈥檚 novel that have entranced Hollywood 鈥� the vast scale, the heady themes of imperialism, religion, power and ecology, the most imaginative world-building this side of 鈥淭he Lord of the Rings鈥� 鈥� have also been the ones that have stymied efforts to adapt it for the screen.

Director David Lynch鈥檚 1984 鈥淒une鈥� was a troubled, critically lambasted production that bombed at the box office and has been disowned by Lynch himself. An earlier effort to adapt the book by cult filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky fizzled after years of development and millions of dollars in pre-production costs, a doomed endeavor chronicled in the 2013 documentary 鈥淛odorowsky鈥檚 Dune.鈥�

Having fallen in love with Herbert鈥檚 book as a teenager in Quebec, Canada, Villeneuve was unfazed by that bumpy history, even as he fully recognized the scale of the task.

鈥淚 knew the big challenge was to make sure that to enjoy the movie you don鈥檛 have to have read the book,鈥� Villeneuve says. 鈥淏ut at the same time, for me, it was even more important that fans of the book will find all the elements and the poetry and the atmosphere that they loved about the book.鈥�

Villeneuve鈥檚 last two films, 2016鈥檚 鈥淎rrival鈥� and 2017鈥檚 鈥淏lade Runner 2049,鈥� were each ambitious and technically daunting sci-fi movies. But as the first installment in a planned two-part epic, 鈥淒une鈥� is a gamble of another order of magnitude.

To help crack Herbert鈥檚 novel, Villeneuve partnered with screenwriters Eric Roth, whose credits include 鈥淔orrest Gump,鈥� 鈥淢unich鈥� and 鈥淎 Star Is Born,鈥� and Jon Spaihts, who has worked on films like 鈥淧rometheus鈥� and 鈥淒octor Strange.鈥�

The Los Angeles Times spoke with the three collaborators about the principles that guided them as they took on what many consider to be the best sci-fi novel of all time.

Divide and conquer

Tackling 鈥淒une鈥� in the mid-1970s, Jodorowsky felt he鈥檇 need 10 to 14 hours of screen time to properly tell the story, crafting a script that Herbert later said was 鈥渢he size of a phone book.鈥� Lynch鈥檚 鈥淒une,鈥� in turn, tried to pack the novel into a single film, resulting in what was widely deemed a confusing mess. (A three-part 鈥淒une鈥� miniseries that aired on what was then called the Sci Fi Channel in 2000 ran four-and-a-half hours in total.)

From the start, Villeneuve made clear that he would only take on 鈥淒une鈥� if he could break the book into two films. That approach made perfect sense to Legendary Entertainment, which had acquired the rights to Herbert鈥檚 work and saw the film as a way to launch a larger franchise that could leverage the novel鈥檚 numerous sequels and prequels.

鈥淚 didn鈥檛 have to fight for this idea,鈥� Villeneuve says. 鈥淚 just said to them, 鈥楪uys, the story is so rich, so complex, it takes all its strength from its details and its poetry. I truly think to do justice to the book, we should do it in two parts.鈥� And they immediately said yes.鈥�

The challenge then was to figure out how to cleave a single work into two parts in a way that felt organic and narratively satisfying. 鈥淭he storytelling kind of let us know where this movie should lead us to the next one,鈥� Roth says. 鈥淥ne of the wonderful things about this movie is that you really feel there鈥檚 another journey ahead that could even be richer.鈥�

Embrace the mystery

The universe of 鈥淒une鈥� operates by its own rules, which can at times be hard to wrap your head around.

The planet Arrakis is home to giant sandworms whose larvae produce a drug colloquially called 鈥渢he spice鈥� that extends life, provides superhuman cognitive abilities and makes interstellar travel possible. An ancient, secretive order of women called the Bene Gesserit attempt to steer humanity toward a higher plane of development through genetic experimentation and the use of their own mental powers 鈥� and believe that Paul may be the long-awaited messianic figure they call the Kwisatz Haderach.

鈥淔rank Herbert created a uniquely rich culture in his futuristic world,鈥� says Spaihts. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a wild and woolly universe with deep mysticism, complex politics, different rivers of thought running through it. It would be very easy to take the source material and make a cerebral project that sort of wanders off into the philosophical bushes.鈥�

For Villeneuve, figuring out how to orient the audience in this strange universe was no easy feat. 鈥淭he storyline is actually pretty simple but it鈥檚 more the density of the world and how rich and complex it is,鈥� he says. 鈥淭he big challenge was to try not to crush the audience at the start with an insane amount of exposition. It took a long time to find the right equilibrium.鈥�

Even as he sought to ground Herbert鈥檚 story and make it comprehensible to newcomers, Villeneuve didn鈥檛 want to lose the more inexplicable qualities that had fired his own imagination at a young age.

鈥淚 love the unknown,鈥� he says. 鈥淚 love to feel vertigo, to feel that there鈥檚 a door that is not open for you, that you have to peek through. There鈥檚 a word in French that you don鈥檛 have in English, envoutant, which means being bewitched by mystery. It was very important for me that we not explain everything.鈥�

Accentuate the feminine

The audience for science fiction tends to skew male but with 鈥淒une,鈥� Villeneuve saw the opportunity to make a film with strong, fully rounded female characters, starting with Lady Jessica (Ferguson), the mother of Paul and a member of the Bene Gesserit.

鈥淎t the very beginning of the creative process, I remember Eric Roth asking me, 鈥榃hat is the most important element I should focus as I鈥檓 starting to write the first draft?鈥� I said, 鈥榃omen,鈥� 鈥� Villeneuve says. 鈥淭here are so many things in the book that are so relevant and so prophetic but I felt that femininity should be up front. We needed to make sure that Lady Jessica is not an expensive extra.鈥�

To further bring forward the book鈥檚 female characters, Villeneuve made the desert-dwelling warrior Chani, played by Zendaya, a significant presence in the film despite the fact that she doesn鈥檛 appear until the second half of Herbert鈥檚 novel.

鈥淎s the movie was evolving, Chani just kept growing and growing because I just was fascinated by Zendaya and her presence and how magnetic she was,鈥� Villeneuve says. 鈥淚 shot more and more scenes with her. We improvised stuff. I was just so inspired by her.鈥�

In one of the biggest departures from the novel, the film changes the gender of the character of Liet Kynes, a planetologist who has a deep understanding and love for Arrakis and its native people, the Fremen. In Herbert鈥檚 book, Kynes is a man but in the film she is a woman, played by British actress Sharon Duncan-Brewster.

The switch was suggested by Spaihts as a way to make the story feel more up to date.

鈥淗erbert鈥檚 novel is, to some extent, an artifact of its time and it definitely skews male in ways that don鈥檛 feel completely contemporary now,鈥� he says. 鈥淥f all the messages in the story, the message brought by Liet Kynes of planetary stewardship, of the preciousness of resources, of the necessity of building bridges to local communities to sustain ourselves going forward 鈥� those are modern messages, and it seemed right to modernize the messenger.鈥�

Streamline judiciously

Even after splitting the book into two movies, there were still some elements that Villeneuve decided to pare back to avoid overloading the film with too many characters and subplots.

Memorably, if campily, played by Sting in Lynch鈥檚 movie, the character of Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen 鈥� the scheming nephew of the villainous Baron Vladimir Harkonnen (Skarsgard) 鈥� does not appear in Villeneuve鈥檚 鈥淒une.鈥�

At the same time, the characters of Thufir Hawat (Stephen McKinley Henderson) and Piter De Vries (David Dastmalchian) 鈥� cognitively super-powered 鈥渕entats鈥� who work for the Atreides and Harkonnen families, respectively 鈥� have less prominent roles in the film than they do in the novel.

鈥淚 gave Denis a very full script that was probably too long and a little too fanciful in some areas,鈥� says Roth, who tackled the initial draft before Spaihts came on board. 鈥淗e did what all good directors do: he edited it and also did his own writing to bring it down to size. You couldn鈥檛 have everything [in the book] 鈥� it would be an eight-hour movie. You have to tell what you consider the best parts of it, the most emotional and adventurous and curious 鈥� all the things that make it interesting.鈥�

That said, while the second 鈥淒une鈥� film hasn鈥檛 officially been greenlit yet, Villeneuve says some things that may have been trimmed from this installment could show up in the next one.

鈥淭here are some elements that I went a bit fast on and some characters that are less developed that I鈥檓 keeping for the second one,鈥� Villeneuve says. 鈥淲e tried in this one to stay as close as possible to Paul鈥檚 experience. Then in the second one, I will have time to develop more some characters that were left aside a little bit. That is the theory. I hope it will work.鈥�

When in doubt, return to the book

With so much on the line, it may have been tempting to try to turn 鈥淒une鈥� into a simpler and more easily marketable kind of spectacle, downplaying the more woo-woo spiritual aspects of the story in favor of slam-bang space battles in the hopes of selling more 鈥淒une鈥� toys come Christmas. But no one involved in the film wanted to stray far from Herbert鈥檚 vision.

Author Brian Herbert, who has co-written a number of 鈥淒une鈥� prequel novels with Kevin J. Anderson that expand upon the universe that his father created and who manages the Herbert literary estate along with other family members, served as an executive producer on the film and weighed in on the script while it was being developed.

鈥淭hey鈥檙e very protective of their father and grandfather鈥檚 work,鈥� Roth says of the Herbert family. 鈥淏ut everybody was so true to the book. Nobody was going to try to do something that flipped it on its head.鈥� (Brian was unavailable to comment for this story but told an interviewer for the website Inverse last year that Villeneuve鈥檚 film 鈥渨ill forever be considered the definitive film adaptation鈥� of his father鈥檚 novel.)

Asked if he ever reached out to either Jodorowsky or Lynch to get their hard-won insights on how 鈥� or, perhaps more importantly, how not 鈥� to wrangle 鈥淒une鈥� onto the screen, Villeneuve said he did not.

鈥淚鈥檓 a big fan of both of them 鈥� these are two masters,鈥� Villeneuve says. 鈥淚 will say, I think if Jodorowsky had made his movie, it would have been an insanely fantastic movie. Would it have been the best 鈥楧une鈥� adaptation? I don鈥檛 know.

鈥淭he thing is, from the start, I didn鈥檛 talk about Jodorowsky鈥檚 ideas or David Lynch鈥檚 ideas. What I said to the studio and my crew was to start from scratch and go back to that, the essence of the book. The book was the bible. I kept saying to my crew, 鈥業 want the people who love the book to feel that we put a camera in their mind as as they were reading.鈥欌��

鈥� Josh Rottenberg, Los Angeles Times