The film version of Dune directed by Alejandro Jodorowsky may be the most famous movie that was never made. Jodorowsky signed on to film Frank Herbert’s award-winning novel in 1974, and assembled a bizarre, celebrity-studded team with the goal of crafting a 10-hour adaptation. Salvador Dalí, Orson Welles, Gloria Swanson, David Carradine, Geraldine Chaplin, Alain Delon, Hervé Villechaize, and Mick Jagger were attached. Pink Floyd would do the soundtrack. And the film’s visuals would be in the hands of Chris Foss, H.R. Giger, and Jean “Moebius” Giraud, a co-founder of Metal Hurlant and mainstay of Heavy Metal. The artists got to work on their designs (with Dan O’Bannon enlisted for special effects) but money ran out fairly quickly. All we have of the movie that would have been is a folder of visual fragments and the 2013 documentary Jodorowsky’s Dune.

Chris Foss was in charge of designing the spaceships, while Giger got started on creepy architecture. Moebius concentrated on the cast of characters:

House Harkonnen

House Atreides

House Corrino

Other Characters

The African, the Russo-American, the Chinese…?

Sources group these drawings with Moebius’ Dune concept art, although how they relate to the Dune saga isn’t clear. If anyone knows, leave a comment.



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