And he's playing a character who ultimately becomes my father, in terms of the character dialogue. Notably, the latter miniseries, 'Children of Dune,' which adapted Herbert's two sequels 'Dune Messiah' and 'Children of Dune,' starred a young, baby-faced James McAvoy before his Hollywood breakout in films like 'The Chronicles of Narnia' or 'Atonement.' And he remembers it all, though 'that was a long time ago,' he told me in an interview to promote the audio drama 'The Sandman Act II.' And though he's far removed from the days of playing one of the titular 'Children of Dune,' McAvoy could not be more excited about Villeneuve's take on the film, or for Timothée Chalamet's performance as his character's father.īut even while he doesn't have any specific advice for Chalamet as a former 'Dune' star ('He's a cracking actor,' McAvoy gushed) he does have advice for starring in a heady sci-fi project like 'Dune.' McAvoy explained: 'I was in an adaptation of the second and third books. However, unbeknownst to many of the American public, Syfy (back then known as the Sci Fi Channel) had already done it - they had made a successful adaptation of 'Dune.' Actually, they made two successful adaptations: the 2000 miniseries 'Frank Herbert's Dune' and the 2003 sequel, 'Frank Herbert's Children of Dune.' Both three-part miniseries won several Emmy Awards and were some of the highest-rated programs to ever be broadcast on the network. That is, of course, until Denis Villeneuve's upcoming 'Dune,' which has already racked up heaps of praise and hype through the film festival circuit.

For a while there, it seemed like 'Dune' was destined to be given the label 'unfilmable' and left to rot on the shelves of Hollywood's never-made productions. David Lynch's 1984 'Dune' was such a critical and commercial bomb that the filmmaker disowned it. Alejandro Jodorowsky's failed attempt to adapt the sci-fi classic was so infamous that the entire thing was chronicled in an acclaimed 2013 documentary by Frank Pavich.

Frank Herbert's 'Dune' is a dense, monumental sci-fi tome with several feature film disasters to its name.

James mcavoy