Thanks to the huge success of Denis Villeneuve’s recent adaptations of duneeveryone seems to know about David Lynch’s first attempt to turn this epic story into a feature film, which unfortunately turned out to be one of the biggest disappointments in film history. The story of the first attempt, dune for the screen is less well known and ended even more spectacularly than Lynch’s, leading to the development of one of the most iconic horror films of all time.

Alejandro Jodorowsky, a filmmaker with a strong vision for dunewas responsible for this first adaptation. His dream was to make an epic ten-hour film, and his ambitions overwhelmed him as the project spiraled further out of control, eventually leading to one of the most notable cinematic failures in history. From that failure came a new kind of success and the birth of one of Hollywood’s most enduring franchises: Foreigner​​.

What is the story behind Jodorowsky’s Dune?

His ambitions went far beyond his reach

In 1974, French producer Michel Seydoux secured the rights to Frank Herbert’s space opera duneHe wanted to make a successful feature film out of it and asked the Chilean and French avant-garde filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky to direct. Jodorowsky had become a fan of the film thanks to the caustic westerns The Top and the surrealist film The Holy MountainWith a unique artistic vision, Seydoux believed that Jodorowsky was just the right man to bring the science fiction world of dune to life. In many respects he was right. In other, equally crucial points, Seydoux was completely wrong.

The problem was that Alejandro Jodorowsky’s vision for dune Was to ambitious. The subsequent development process lasted two and a half years and involved a whole host of artists that Jodorowsky contacted to become part of the process. Pink Floyd was credited with providing the music. Salvador Dali, Mick Jagger and Orson Welles were asked to be part of the cast. Legendary comic book artist Jean “Moebius” Giraud developed storyboards for the film and created over 2,000 images. In particular, HR Giger was brought in to help design the film’s visual elements. At the same time, a young, up-and-coming screenwriter, Dan O’Bannon, played a role in the film’s special effects department.

The originally planned budget of 15 million dollars soon became significantly larger, and Jodorowsky’s idea for dune became untenable. In 1982, after nearly a decade of development, the team was short $5 million and the rights went back to Herbert before being acquired by producer Dino De Laurentiis, who eventually hired David Lynch to dune to life. Shelving the film, which later became known as “The Greatest Movie Never Made,” had one positive result: It inspired Dan O’Bannon to come up with an idea for a new film called Star Beast.

How did Jodorowsky’s Dune lead to Alien?

It provided the genetic material for the science fiction hit

Star Beast is almost certainly not the name of the film you were expecting to read. This is because over time Star Beast developed into what later became known as Foreigner. After working with Jodorowsky for so long on the development Dune, Dan O’Bannon left Paris and returned to LA, heartbroken and more or less penniless. He ended up sleeping at his friend Ronald Shusett’s house. Knowing he couldn’t stay there forever, O’Bannon came up with an idea to make money. He later told Den of Geek:

To finally get away from his friend’s couch, Dan O’Bannon began writing what later became Foreigner with the help of his friend Ronald Shusett as co-author. Originally titled Star Beast and based on a short script he had written before his trip to Paris, MemoryAfter O’Bannon finished the script, he changed the title to Foreigner based on the frequency with which the word appeared in the final version.

Dan O’Bannon then went through a demoralizing option period with the studio interested in producing the film Brandywine, during which he and Shusett were stripped of the script and rewritten with additional material such as the introduction of the cybernetic being Ash. Eventually these differences were settled, with O’Bannon receiving sole authorship for Alien script, and the project was given the green light after the monumental success of another sci-fi production, star Wars.

After 20th Century Fox had the option Foreigner and Ridley Scott was firmly in the director’s chair, O’Bannon introduced Scott to friends and colleagues with whom he had Dunes long development cycle, hoping to get them on board the project. HR Giger became the most famous name and provided much of the infamous Xenomorph design, while other names such as Moebius and Chris Foss also contributed Alien’s Art department as conceptual artist.

A look between the storyboards for Jodorowsky’s Dune And Foreigner proves that both films come from the same creative DNA and have a remarkably similar visual aesthetic. Considering how influential Alien Production design has evolved over the years since, and it’s safe to say that The Greatest Film Never Made deserves some of that credit.

Which documentaries tell this complete story?

The memory of Jodorowsky’s Dune

If the idea that Jodorowsky’s Dune led to the creation of one of the most acclaimed horror films of all time in Foreigner If you are curious, there are a few documentaries you should watch to get the full story. First and foremost, there are Jodorowsky’s Dunea documentary that delves deep into the visionary director’s creative process and brings to light never-before-heard details about the project’s lengthy development. This acclaimed documentary shows that Jodorowsky was more interested in the “idea” dune than in the source material itself.

This undoubtedly contributed to the fact that Jodorowski never really dune There is simply no denying that the man has assembled one of the most talented rosters of creative minds to ever work together on a film. Thankfully, all that hard work was not in vain. After dune was canceled, the artists hired to realize the vision ultimately went their own ways and used much of the material in Hollywood blockbusters for the next two decades, with Foreigner is just one of those films in which the irrepressible star Wars Franchise.

If you Foreigner Page of these events, check out Memory: The Origins of Alienwhich takes up the story in which Jodorowsky’s Dune ends. This documentary traces Dan O’Bannon’s pilgrimage from bankrupt special effects supervisor to creator of one of Hollywood’s most popular franchises. The story of Alien The development cycle has as many twists and turns as Jodorowsky’s Dunebut ended on a much more favorable note, with O’Bannon and Ridley Scott coming together to create something both men were immensely proud of.

Overall, Jodorowsky’s Dune And Memory: The Origins of Alien form a complete story arc that will be of interest to film historians or long-time fans of the Foreigner franchise. They also offer a glimpse into the portrait of two auteur filmmakers, Jodorowsky and Scott, one of whom navigated the complicated minefields of big-budget motion picture making while the other did not. It may have been a failure, but there’s no denying that it was not an honorable failure, one that would lead to better and better things later on, and change the face of horror and science fiction films forever.