How the original Dune movie changed the trajectory of David Lynch’s career

David Lynch’s debut feature Eraserhead was an arthouse favorite when it was released in 1977 and, thanks to some enterprising film programmers, remained in theaters for many years, gaining popularity in the northern box office. One of the film’s many fans was Mel Brooks, the famous director of Young Frankenstein and Flaming Saddles. Brooks, eager to further Lynch’s career, created his own production company, Brooksfilms, to finance his next project: a stylized biography of Joseph Merrick, known to the world as the Elephant Man.

Lynch’s The Elephant Man while the surreal “Gumhead” featured similarly depressing black-and-white visuals, it was an interesting Oscar favorite, nominated for eight Academy Awards. It was up for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Actor, among others. Unfortunately, it lost in all eight categories.

However, Lynch—a prodigious artist and art student from Montana—suddenly became a powerful player on the Hollywood scene. His short films and his two feature films to date have been low-key and lackluster, but Lynch has also proven himself to be talented and open-minded, attracting the attention of major Hollywood producers. Many may know how Lynch was approached by George Lucas about directing the then upcoming film Return of the Jedi. and how the proposition gave Lynch a headache. Lynch was also approached by super producer Dino DeLaurentis about directing the adaptation of Frank Herbert’s Dune, a project that had been in the works for years.

Lynch agreed to direct Dune, rewriting history to his liking. It took him many months to develop the script, and he ended up going through six drafts before creating an all-rounder that he would agree to make. It turned out, however, that completing Dune would be a nightmare. Filming was delayed, the studio intervened, and Lynch ended up hating the whole experience. His aversion to Dune would later shape Lynch’s entire career.

Back in 1983, when Dune was being made, Universal thought it had a hit. The studio wanted something expensive and epic to compete with Fox’s Star Wars franchise, and felt that a more mature sci-fi story was the way to go. The film required a huge cast of actors and extras, more than 80 sets and extensive special effects. It is reported that the film crew consisted of about 1,700 people. It was conceived as a super-blockbuster.

But it never happened. Lynch had to rewrite the script so many times that the film began to tire. After that, filming took place in Mexico and lasted a full six months and did not end until September 1983. Many people fell ill during production, communication lines kept breaking, and filming was often halted due to blackouts. It was very, very difficult for Lynch.

When filming finally ended, Lynch had practically four hours of raw footage. The final (seventh!) draft of the script was supposed to be about three hours long, but Universal, fearing such a long length, insisted that Lynch cut it down to two. Lynch went on a frenetic editing spree, adding voiceovers to clarify the film’s dense plot and mythology, and constantly reshooting scenes for clarity. The final segment was 137 minutes. Lynch never had a longer “director’s cut” up his sleeve. Most of the creative demands for the film were dictated by either Universal or De Lauretis, who were trying to wrest control of the film from Lynch.

Later, in the village 2022 interview with AV ClubLynch acknowledged this “Dune” became his “full house” moment He tried the old college, but he definitely didn’t like working at the Company.

Many fans may be familiar with the 183-minute version of Lynch’s Dune miniseries, often referred to as the Extended Edition. This version was edited into a new narrative and overlaid with the film’s concept art photos to make Herbert’s story more compelling to a wider movie audience. Lynch hated the reconstruction so much that he removed his name from it. This reduction is credited to Alan Smithy.

Dune, perhaps predictably, failed. It only made about $31.4 million worldwide on a $40 million budget, killing Universal’s hopes for the franchise. The source material, after all, was too dense and strange for a massive feature film (at least at the time), while the actual film is constantly torn between Lynch’s artistic sensibility and the studio’s need for production lavishness. Nobody got what they wanted.

After that, Lynch decided to make his next film more personal, more surreal, and more comfortable to make. Starting with Dune, he was determined to only be in the productions he wanted to be in and wasn’t going to push the whims of the studio or worry about big budgets. “The Dune” was as “mainstream” as Lynch was ever going to get.

The following year, Lynch pitched a much more modestly personal film to Dean DeLaurentis, and the super-producer was intrigued. The movie was Blue Velvet. a noir film that set Lynch’s career on a whole new path. Now he was freer to tell strange, dark, nightmarish, violent stories about sex and obsession. U book of interviews “Lynch on Lynch”, The director admitted that after “Dune” he has nowhere to go but up. Now he could experiment as he pleased.

All of Lynch’s other films after Dune were unmistakably his, and the director maintained close creative control over each one. The Dune was a lesson for Lynch; he learned never to do anything like that again.