Dune director Denis Villeneuve said he's not happy about his new film going straight to streaming. One of the most acclaimed filmmakers in Hollywood right now, Denis Villeneuve began his career directing Canadian foreign-language films before making his English-language debut with Prisoners starring Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhaal. He achieved further international success in 2015 with Sicario, an action thriller starring Emily Blunt and Benicio del Toro as agents tasked with hunting down cartel members along the U.S.-Mexico border. Villeneuve transitioned to sci-fi with his critically beloved back-to-back films Arrival and Blade Runner 2049, the latter of which is considered one of the best sequels ever and cultivated a strong relationship with Warner Bros.
The director continued that relationship and his streak of high-minded sci-fi with Dune, an adaptation of Frank Herbert's bestselling novel about feuding interstellar families fighting over the planet Arrakis and its highly coveted "spice" drug that enhances the lifespan of its users. Starring Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Oscar Isaac, Josh Brolin, and an outstanding supporting cast, the film was one of the most highly anticipated theatrical releases of 2020 before being delayed nearly a year due to the coronavirus pandemic. Recently, Warner Bros. announced all 2021 releases would hit HBO Max the same day as theaters, and now many filmmakers, including Villeneuve, are expressing their contempt for the decision.
In an exclusive column for Variety, Denis Villeneuve said he was unhappy with Warner's decision to put its entire 2021 slate on HBO Max immediately upon release. He echoed Christopher Nolan's earlier statements by calling HBO Max's launch a failure and ultimately blamed the studio's parent company AT&T for the decision, citing the public corporation's need to appease shareholders amid the pandemic's stranglehold on movie theaters nationwide. Here's an excerpt from the Dune director's column below:
With this decision AT&T has hijacked one of the most respectable and important studios in film history. There is absolutely no love for cinema, nor for the audience here. It is all about the survival of a telecom mammoth, one that is currently bearing an astronomical debt of more than $150 billion. Therefore, even though “Dune” is about cinema and audiences, AT&T is about its own survival on Wall Street. With HBO Max’s launch a failure thus far, AT&T decided to sacrifice Warner Bros.’ entire 2021 slate in a desperate attempt to grab the audience’s attention.
Though Villeneuve went on to praise streaming services for their content and place in the media landscape, he made clear that streaming alone can't save movies during this time of unparalleled crisis. The sheer scope and scale of Dune, in particular, he said, all but makes certain that it has no place on HBO Max, which Villeneuve believes will be a ripe playground for piracy once his movie debuts on the service.
Villeneuve seems right in saying his movie doesn't belong on a streaming service. While many big-budget films with high-profile stars have found success on Netflix and elsewhere, a transporting film like Dune that takes place in an alternate universe across many exotic landscapes certainly deserves the big screen experience we so desperately want to return to, even if it may not be for another year or so. Many cinephiles may find it disappointing and disorienting to watch something like Dune on a smaller screen at home surrounded by everyday distractions, and Villeneuve is certainly willing to fight back in hopes that doesn't eventually become the norm going forward.
Source: Variety