How did you first hear about Jodorowsky’s version of Dune?

I think the first time I heard about it was in one of those books, you know, like The 50 Greatest Movies Never Made kind of a thing. And his [Dune] was always the coolest one. The one you’re dying to see. For an unrealized film, as he says, it’s there. He feels that he made the movie. I don’t think there’s really anybody else out there with an unmade film who truly believes that and can pretty much back it up with all the work that was done.

All of the artists and producers seem genuinely excited to talk about the film. How did they react when you started reaching out?

They were immediately on board. They all still have nothing but good thoughts about Alejandro. There’s nothing but good experiences on the film. And they were thrilled to get to tell their part of the story, because he really changed their lives. None of them had worked in film — Moebius, Chris Foss, and Giger, none of them had worked in film before — and Alejandro just saw something special in them.

The team helped influenced an entire generation of filmmakers. What is it about this group of artists, and the work they did together on Dune, that’s had so much resonance?

I think it was what Alejandro gave them, which was this total freedom. He would kind of inspire them, he would go in and say, "This is what we need today, we need you to design a ship like this." But then he left them to create. And I think that he had enough confidence in himself and in his team to allow them to do that.

You know, there’s a bunch of those [storyboard] books that were never recovered. I think they made twenty, and there’s only two in existence now. So did they get passed around? Did people see them and sort of get inspired by them, either consciously or unconsciously? And just like Alejandro used his ideas in other projects — his other comics, his other films — the other artists did as well. So this incredibly fertile two-year period really birthed so much amazing creativity.