Denis Villeneuve on Dune changes: ‘My goal was to be faithful to Frank Herbert’

But, speaking exclusively to RadioTimes.com ahead of the film's launch, the director explained that the changes he had made were designed to more fully serve the aims Herbert originally had when writing the book.

"It's a true adaptation in the sense that it's like my take on the book," he said. "And there are strong decisions that were made in order to bring this adaptation to the screen – these decisions have been made in order to be faithful to Frank Herbert.

"So in some strange way, my goal was to be faithful to Monsieur Herbert and less to the book, more to Frank's vision."

He added that he was "absolutely confident" in the changes that he had made and said there had been "no hesitation" from him and co-writer Jon Spaihts when deciding what to discard from the book and what to keep.

One change that was made from the novel was expanding the role of Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson), in part due to the decision not to include the character of Alia, who instead remains unborn throughout the film (although she does communicate with Jessica from the womb).

Asked if he partly made this choice so that Ferguson would have more to do, Villeneuve responded: "I didn't do this for Rebecca.

"Of course, it's an incredible pleasure for me to work with Rebecca, because she's an amazing actress... but it was more importantly, as I said before, to be faithful to Frank Herbert.

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He continued: "When he released the first book, he was disappointed in how people perceived Paul, because the readers were seeing Paul as a hero. And he wanted to make him a tragic figure, anti-hero, he wanted the book to be a cautionary tale and not a celebration.

"So he wrote Dune: Messiah to correct the perception of the first book. And me, I knew that my addition was made thinking about his intentions, initial intentions."

Dune: Part Two is released in UK cinemas on 1st March 2024. Check out more of our Sci-Fi or Film coverage or visit our TV Guide to see what's on tonight.

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