Seriously, the cast being assembled for Denis Villeneuve’s upcoming adaptation of Frank Herbert’s Dune is shaping up brilliantly. And now, another top-tier talent has been added to the movie.
Courtesy of Variety, Josh Brolin has joined the picture to play Gurney Halleck, a character pivotal to the Atreides family at the centre of the film and somebody played by a certain Sir Patrick Stewart in the 1984 take on Dune. Brolin, of course, is best known over the past couple of years for playing both Thanos and Cable in big-screen Marvel movies.
For Dune, Brolin joins a cast that includes Timothée Chalamet as Paul Atreides, Rebecca Ferguson as Paul’s mother Lady Jessica, Charlotte Rampling as Reverend Mother Mohiam, Javier Bardem as Stilgar, Stellan Skarsgard as Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, and Dave Bautista as the sadistic nephew of Skarsgard’s Baron Harkonnen. Elsewhere, Oscar Isaac is currently in talks to play Duke Leto Atreide, the father of Paul, and Zendaya is in talks to play Chani, the love interest of Chalamet’s character.
Dune began life back in 1965, with Frank Herbert’s original novel tying for the 1966 Hugo Award and then winning the inaugural Nebula Award for Best Novel. Set in the distant future, the story centres on Paul Atreides as his family takes control of the desert planet known as Arrakis. With valuable resources key to the tale, what unravels is a plot that’s full of politics, betrayal, and man’s relationship with nature. A Kyle MacLachlan-starring, David Lynch-helmed movie followed in 1984, which went on to become a cult classic, and then Syfy developed a Dune TV series in 2000. As for written works, Herbert penned five sequels himself before Kevin J. Anderson and Brian Herbert expanded that written world even further.
At this stage, Villeneuve’s Dune has yet to be given a release date.