Frank Herbert’s 1965 sci-fi classic heads back to the big screen in a new Dune movie to be directed by Pierre Morel. The French filmmaker got the gig with Paramount Pictures on the strength of his taut 2009 thriller Taken.

According to Variety, Morel is a hard-core fan of Herbert’s novel. The director will fine-tune a script by Peter Berg, who split the project to take on Hasbro board game adaptation Battleship.

Producing the picture is New Amsterdam’s Richard Rubenstein, who also handled the TV movie version of Dune and its Children of Dune sequel.

In 1984, David Lynch took a love-it-or-hate-it crack at Herbert's saga about an outer-space showdown on the desert planet of Arrakis. Are you optimistic about Hollywood's upcoming take on Dune, or is Herbert's story best confined to the printed page? Weigh in below.

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