Jodorowsky’s Dune

The documentary Jodorowsky’s Dune chronicles the failed effort by cult filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky to adapt Frank Herbert’s 1965 sci-fi novel Dune years before David Lynch's and Denis Villeneuve’s respective versions hit cinema screens. The details of the unrealized project are nothing short of a tantalizing cinematic “what if?” The cast was set to include Mick Jagger, Salvador Dali, Orson Welles, Gloria Swanson, and Udo Kier. Pink Floyd was approached to do the score. Heavy Metal cartoonist Jean “Mœbius” Giraud created thousands of fascinating storyboards for the film, and H.R. Giger (Alien) was brought in to help create the look of the film. But Jodorowsky’s overlong runtime was at least five times what the studio would support, and the tenuous deal fell apart. (90 mins., DCP)

Sayuri Ayers is the author of three poetry collections—The Woman, The River (2023), Mother/Wound (2020), and Radish Legs, Duck Feet (2016)—and one creative nonfiction collection, The Maiden in the Moon (2023). Scott Woods is a Columbus writer, activist, and founder of the Streetlight Guild.

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Jodorowsky's Dune, courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.