No Berg for Dune

The rumor mill has been put to a halt within the past twenty four hours. The first of the two stops included Dylan Baker practically confirming that he will play a villain called the Lizard in the new “Spider-Man” movie. Now director Peter Berg is not attached to the “Dune” remake in any way as previously mentioned around the internet. Pajiba has more on the fate of the 80′s remake.:

But the big news is, Peter Berg completely dropped the project a few weeks ago — his Film 44 production company backed out, and now Paramount is scrambling to find a new director.

The search, however, has run into two issues: 1) they’re looking for a director who can put the movie together for under $175 million, which sounds manageable, but they don’t want anything resembling the crap effects of the ‘84 film, and 2) they want a director who already has a preexisting passion for the novel and is enthusiastic about the project. Right now, Paramount is shopping the script to two directors: They like Neil Blompkamp (District 9), who has the right vision, but the frontrunner, at the moment, is Neil Marshall (The Descent), who was sent the script early this month. However, despite the enthusiasm of producer, Kevin Misher (Public Enemies), the studio is somewhat tepid on Marshall, uncertain about handing over a $175 million film with franchise potential to a somewhat unknown director whose only hit was the modestly successful The Descent.

“Dune” originated as a 1965 novel written by Frank Herbert that a couple of decades later got picked up as an adaptation written and directed by David Lynch. The science fiction film had a large string of bad reviews and despite it’s now-cult status, is being shopped around by Paramount Pictures to be one of a string of eighties films remade.