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The lack of stars was the reason Dune '84 flopped

posted 3 years ago by avigalidou (603)
18 replies | jump to latest

Back then and even today it's really hard to succeed without big stars.I think De Laurentis thought that if Star Wars can pull it off with (relatively)unknowns (minus Alec Guiness) he could do it too.
Anyway it was a huge movie,maybe he couldn't afford an all star cast ,but if I could cast this movie back then, I would cast some stars in key roles to give it a boost at the Box Office.

Sean Connery as Duke Leto
James Earl Jones as Mentat Thufir Hawat
Marlon Brando as the Baron Vladimir Harkonnen
Charlton Heston as Emperor Shaddam IV
Burt Lancaster as Gurney(he is 70+ in the book)
Charles Bronson as Stilgar

And MAYBE a young Tom Cruise as Paul (even though I love MacLachlan's portrayal)

[–] Keelai (32080) 2 months ago

Not for me since I liked the actors. I tried watching, but I found it boring and very confusing. I never watched the whole thing.

[–] pjl69 (2442) 2 months ago

Dune flopped because it was so deformed. People probably found the beginning boring and the end rushed. I personally like the film, especially its beginning and atmosphere, and it is Lynch's film that I return to most often of all his works, but it is far from perfect. 130 minutes was just too short a time to tell Dune's story, but in the 80's there wasn't much interest in film trilogies. They just cut the movies down to 90 minutes (like Ridley Scott's Legend) or 120 minutes.