"I DON'T CARE" - Denis Villeneuve Responds To Quentin Tarantino's 'DUNE' Criticisms

Denis Villeneuve is not afraid to stand up to Quentin Tarantino.

After Tarantino’s comments last week about Villeneuve’s Dune being an “uninteresting remake”, the Academy Award-nominated director bit back, stating his adaptation was “not a remake”, as he was asked about the critique during his appearance at Concordia University in Montreal.

“I don’t care. It’s true,” he said of Tarantino’s comments, “I agree with him that I don’t like this idea of recycling and bringing back old ideas. But where I disagree is that what I did was not a remake. It’s an adaptation of the book. I see this as an original”.

These comments come after Villeneuve recently announced he plans to begin work on the Dune franchise’s third feature film, Dune: Messiah, “faster than [he] thinks”, revealing he was already in the writing stages and plans to begin production in 2026. This instalment will “finish the Paul Atreides arc” and end Villeneuve’s association with the Dune franchise.

The franchise also has a televised instalment Dune: Prophecy, a prequel series, coming to MAX (US) and SKY/NOW TV (UK) in just over a week’s time. While Villeneuve was once directly involved in the series’ production, he had to step away to focus on the theatrical side of things. Despite this, executive producer Jordan Goldberg confirmed it is “in the same universe” as Villeneuve’s films. “We feel like we have to follow the essence of what Denis has done. He set the tone.”

“I saw [Lynch’s] Dune a couple of times,” Tarantino dropped on the Bret Easton Ellis podcast, “I don’t need to see that story again. I don’t need to see spice worms. I don’t need to see a movie that says the word ‘spice’ so dramatically.”

Tarantino followed: “It’s one after another of this remake, and that remake. People ask ‘Have you seen Dune? Have you seen Ripley? Have you seen Shōgun?’ And I’m like, ‘No, no, no, no.’ There’s six or seven Ripley books: If you do one again, why are you doing the same one that they’ve done twice already? I’ve seen that story twice before, and I didn’t really like it in either version, so I’m not really interested in seeing it a third time. If you did another story, that would be interesting enough to give it a shot anyway”.

These comments come after Quentin Tarantino’s unbridled praise for the critically maligned and commercial failure Joker: Folie Á Deux, where he shared immense adoration for the writing and directing, two features of the movie almost universally detested by fans and audiences alike.

“I really, really liked it, really. A lot. Like, tremendously”, Tarantino said, “The Joker directed the movie. The entire concept, even him spending the studio’s money — he’s spending it like the Joker would spend it, all right?” Tarantino said. “And then his big surprise gift — haha! — the jack-in-the-box, when he offers you his hand for a handshake and you get a buzzer with 10,000 volts shooting you — is the comic book geeks. He’s saying fuck you to all of them. He’s saying fuck you to the movie audience. He’s saying fuck you to Hollywood. He’s saying fuck you to anybody who owns any stock at DC and Warner Brothers […] And Todd Phillips is the Joker. Un film de Joker, all right, is what it is. He is the Joker”.

2021’s Dune: Part One won 177 awards and the franchise has earned more than $1 billion at the box office.