Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of the classic sci-fi novel, Dune, recently garnered a total of ten Oscar nominations at the 94th Academy Awards. Yet, prior to the film’s success, Frank Herbert’s novel was notorious for being impossible to adapt to the big screen. Of all the previous attempts to adapt Dune, including Jodorowsky’s Dune and certain TV adaptations, the most well-known was David Lynch’s 1984 film of the same name. Though the movie has since developed a cult following, the film was negatively reviewed by critics and a box office failure upon its release. The reason for the disaster, though, was not because of the director, but the creative interference from the studio. The struggle between the directors, who are responsible for the creative aspect of production, and the studios, who finance the films, has been a constant problem in filmmaking, and in the case of 1984’s Dune, it resulted in director David Lynch disowning the film.
When Lynch took on the project, he envisioned the sci-fi epic to be divided into two separate movies, and members of the cast even signed contracts for three films. However, the studio, for financial or other reasons, forced Lynch to condense it all into one film. With a reportedly 42 million dollars budget, Lynch completed his three-and-a-half-hour rough cut of the film. Yet the problem continued. The producers and financiers denied Lynch the authority for a final cut, which means that the director had no control over the final version of the film shown in theaters and the final film did not reflect his creative visions. With the studio controlling the post-production process, the theatrical version ultimately condensed Frank Herbert’s nine-hundred-page novel into two hours and seventeen minutes. Inevitably, a world as grand as Dune, comparable to that of Tolkien’s Middle Earth, is impossible to fit into a two-hour movie, and as a result, the film was confusing with serious pacing issues. The legendary film critic, Roger Ebert, named Dune (1984) “the worst movie of the year,” and commented that the film “is a real mess, an incomprehensible, ugly, unstructured, pointless excursion into the murkier realms of one of the most confusing screenplays of all time.” Janet Maslin from the New York Times mockingly critiqued, “Several of the characters in Dune are psychic, which puts them in the unique position of being able to understand what goes on in the movie.” The film grossed around thirty million dollars, compared to its estimated forty million budget, and became one of the biggest box office failures of film history. David Lynch, of course, did not want to associate his name with such a disaster and disowned the movie. He even removed his name from the credits in later cuts and airings of the film. Though Universal Pictures had approached Lynch to create a director’s cut, Lynch declined every offer.
Some directors, however, took such an opportunity to finally realize their visions. Ridley Scott’s 1982 sci-fi classic, Blade Runner, is known for having a confusing number of five different cuts. Like Lynch, Scott was not given the final cut privilege for the initial 1982 release. The test screenings before the theatrical release of a workprint version done by Scott received negative reviews from the audience, who noted that the film was difficult to understand. Thus, the studio added redundant voiceovers for additional explanations and included an alternate end scene to tie the story up with a “happy ending,” all of which undermined the ambiguity and dark tone that crowned this film as a masterpiece. In 1992, Warner Bros. produced the Director’s Cut of the film which Ridley Scott provided consultation for yet was not directly in charge of. Lacking a key scene and certain score composed by the film’s composer, Vangelis, this version was then publicly disowned by Scott as it again failed to reflect his original vision. Finally in 2007, twenty-five years after the initial release of Blade Runner, Ridley Scott was given complete artistic control to produce the Final Cut, which at last cemented his vision for his sci-fi classic.
A more recent but just as frustrating example of studios tampering with directors’ ideas is Zack Snyder’s plan for the DCEU, also known as the Snyderverse. Originally envisioned as a five-movie arc consisting of Man of Steel (2013), Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016), and three Justice League movies, Snyder was forced to leave production during the filming of the first Justice League due to a family tragedy. The film was then handed to Joss Whedon, who completely shifted Snyder’s tone and vision of what was released as Justice League (2017). The film, universally detested by fans and critics, was a box office failure. In 2021, however, under the relentless protests from DC fans around the world for four years, Warner Bros. allowed Snyder to complete and release his “Snyder Cut” of the film, or Zack Snyder’s Justice League (2021). Widely praised by audiences, the “Snyder Cut” not only delivered what fans anticipated but also set up the future of the “Snydervers”. Its release unleashed the cries of all DC fans for Warner Bros. to “restore the Snyderverse” and allow Snyder to complete his five-movie vision. However, despite the clear desires from their audiences, Warner Bros. chose to follow the alternate plan for DCEU that they developed following the 2017 release of Justice League and abandon the unique stories driven by the creativity of directors which DC used to be known for.
Warner Bros.’ decision for the DCEU, like their tampering of Blade Runner (1982) or Universal’s control over Dune (1984), was driven by a financial concern that rooted in perhaps a misjudgment of their audiences. Their speculation of the audiences’ reactions, which affected their profit, outweighed their trust in the directors. What the studios failed to see, however, as proven repeatedly in their interferences, was the even greater danger of clashing priorities, one more harmful than a financial risk. When the artistic vision of a director collides with a studio’s false assumptions of the vision, which they don’t completely understand, the resulting product is often a tampered, incomplete piece of art that conversely causes more financial harm to the studio. Unfortunately, as franchise films dominate the industry, directors today are struggling more than ever to maintain their complete artistic control over their works.
Works Cited
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“Dune (1984 Film).” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 18 Feb. 2022, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dune_(1984_film)#Editing.
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Snyder, Daniel D. “The Messy, Misunderstood Glory of David Lynch’s Dune.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 14 Mar. 2014, https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/03/the-messy-misunderstood-glory-of-david-lynchs-em-dune-em/284316/.
“Versions of Blade Runner.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 22 Nov. 2021, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Versions_of_Blade_Runner#The_Director’s_Cut_(1992).
Wang, Jeffrey. “David Lynch Should Have Never Disowned Dune.” ScreenRant, 10 July 2021, https://screenrant.com/dune-david-lynch-disowned-wrong-reason/.
“Why are there 5 versions of Blade Runner?” YouTube, uploaded by Media Muse, 6 Oct. 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmOvb41Zbb4.