Dune star Josh Brolin offers a sneak peek of the location standing in as desert planet Arrakis in a new video originally posted to Instagram. In February, it was reported Brolin had nabbed the role of Gurney Halleck. The character serves as mentor to lead character Paul Atreides (to be played by Call Me by Your Name’s Timothée Chalamet) and was played by Patrick Stewart in David Lynch’s 1984 Dune film. Brolin joins an impressive ensemble cast that alongside Chalamet also includes Javier Bardem, Oscar Isaac, Rebecca Ferguson, Stellan Skarsgård and Dune’s most recent addition Chang Chen of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon fame.
Villeneuve’s Dune, which is adapted from the Frank Herbert novels of the same name, officially started shooting on location in mid-March. Production companies Warner Bros and Legendary Entertainment confirmed that Dune would be filming in locations including Hungary’s capital city Budapest and Jordan. Now thanks to Brolin, we know a little bit more about one of those shooting locations.
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In a video reposted on Twitter by DUNEFAN2020, a fan account for the forthcoming film, Brolin gives a panoramic sweep of where the cast and crew are filming at Wadi Rum, a dramatic desert landscape located in southern Jordan. According to Brolin’s commentary, a sandstorm was about to hit the film set located in what he described as “a lot of ancient space” that is “beautiful, peaceful, quiet, ominous.” Brolin also enthusiastically states, “We like camels!” So it seems he’s rather fond of the local mode of transportation too.
Judging by the video, Brolin is approaching Dune with the same kind of enthusiasm and dedication he has his other recent projects like Avengers: Infinity War, Deadpool 2 and the upcoming and much-anticipated Avengers: Endgame. As per usual, Brolin’s hilarious Instagram account has been the source of some great insider info from his point of view. Recently, the actor has used social media to respond to a particularly funny theory about Avengers: Endgame involving Ant-Man and Thanos’ anus and it seems he’ll be using it to give fans snippets of info about Dune too.
As for the filming location itself, Wadi Rum definitely seems like a befitting stand in for the desert planet of Arrakis. Also known as the Valley of the Moon, Wadi Rum’s sandy terrain and jagged mountains are certainly convincing as a barren, distant planet. Brolin mentioning a sandstorm was approaching is fitting too considering that massive sandstorms regularly ravaged Arrakis in Herbert’s original Dune novels. Other space-set movies including Prometheus, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and The Martian have also filmed at Wadi Rum, so Dune is in good company. It’ll be exciting to see how big a role Wadi Rum plays in Dune when it’s released in late 2020.
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Source: DUNEFAN2020/Twitter
