Peter Berg Leaves Dune Remake

Published by Jeff Leins on: October 28th, 2009

Peter Berg has officially left the Dune remake currently in early development at Paramount.  The director has been tentatively attached for quite some time, and commented last year “if it weren’t for the writer’s strike, we’d be in it right now.”

The good people at Pajiba came through with the exclusive, confirming Berg is done with the re-imagining and will likely make the board game adaptation Battleship his next film instead.

The site also learned Berg had an informal discussion with brooding heartthrob Robert Pattinson for the lead, but nothing was official.  Whew, looks like we dodged that bullet now that Berg is out.

Paramount is now searching for Berg’s replacement, a director that can handle a $175 million special effects movie and shows a passion for the Hugo Award-winning novel.  They’ll probably also need to be able to pare down Josh Zetumer’s nearly 200-page script.  So far the front-runners are Neil Marshall (The Descent) and Neill Blomkamp (District 9).  The studio isn’t really sure about either one, and they both have their hands full at the moment.

David Lynch directed the original in 1984 based on the same book by Frank Herbert, but he turned it into an odd science fiction cult film.