denis

Denis Villeneuve Calls the MCU ‘Cut and Paste’ Movies

Denis Villeneuve will soon premiere his take on Frank Herbert’s epic sci-fi novel, Dune, in the U.S. This is not only the most important film of his career, but arguably the biggest cinematic spectacle to arrive in a generation. Yet, in a now-familiar fate for would-be blockbusters, its designed awe-inspiring theatrical presentation will likely be stultified by a day-and-date streaming arrival on HBO Max. While this phenomenon has left the exhibitor industry in an existential malaise, a Marvel movie, Shang-Chi, recently bucked the downward trend by grossing an impressive $85 million in a traditionally tough four-day Labor Day weekend. However,…
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Dune: Denis Villeneuve Says It’s ‘Sprint’ to Finish Movie in Time

Denis Villeneuve is determined to finish Dune in time for its holiday season release. That doesn’t appear to be an easy task in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. Indeed, Villeneuve was quarantining from his Canadian home in Montreal when he revealed to the Shanghai International Film Festival (via IndieWire) how much pressure the pandemic has put on Dune, which only now in August is about to begin its reshoots—a fact star Rebecca Ferguson previously alluded to in a separate interview. “I was planning to go back and shoot some elements later because I wanted to readjust the movie,” Villeneuve…
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Dune: Denis Villeneuve on Updating a Classic for the 21st Century

Filmmaker Denis Villeneuve knows a thing or two about stepping into deep waters with even deeper legacies. A versatile filmmaker who as of late has been working in science fiction, his last movie Blade Runner 2049 was the decades-later sequel to a 1980s cult classic lionized for its genre-defining imagery. For most filmmakers such a prospect would be intimidating, but for Villeneuve it might only be pretext since his next film is a new big screen adaptation of Frank Herbert’s Dune. Dune has technically been brought to the screen before, but in such an unfortunate and incomprehensible way by director…
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