Director Denis Villeneuve has proven with his previous output that he is a filmmaker with an eye for detail, and he is clearly bringing that same tact to the world of Dune. He has recently revealed that he and his team dedicated a full year to perfect the sandworm creature designs for the movie, in order to ensure that these science-fiction monsters were best realized for his upcoming adaptation.
"We talked about every little detail that would make such a beast possible, from the texture of the skin, to the way the mouth opens, to the system to eat its food in the sand. It was a year of work to design and to find the perfect shape that looked prehistoric enough."
It sounds like Denis Villeneuve and the design team are taking a very detailed approach to the design of these fictional creatures, looking at every element of the animal's make-up in order to create something realistic enough to be believable whilst erring on the side of something primal. Villeneuve's dedication and attention to even the smallest details of the world of Dune will hopefully lead to the sci-fi adaptation that fans have been longing for.
The sandworms first appeared in the source novel written by Frank Herbert, and are also known as "Makers" or "Shai-Hulud" by the inhabitants of the desert planet Arrakis. The monstrous creatures are seen as agents of God, with their actions being perceived as being akin to divine intervention. The sandworms are cylindrical worm-like creatures with a fearsome array of crystalline teeth which are used primarily for rasping rocks and sand. They can grow to be hundreds of meters in length, with their mouths being described as growing some eighty meters in diameter.
The sandworms live on the desert planet Arrakis, with these gigantic worms burrowing deeply into the ground and able to travel swiftly almost unseen. The planet Arrakis is the only known source in the Dune universe of the fictional drug "melange", highly prized for its medicinal and mystical properties. Melange deposits are found in the sand seas of Arrakis, where the sandworms live and hunt. Sandworms are a routine hazard for melange-harvesting vehicles but are tolerated because they are almost indestructible and melange is a byproduct of their life cycle.
Warner Bros. Pictures describes the movie as, "A mythic and emotionally charged hero's journey, Dune tells the story of Paul Atreides, a brilliant and gifted young man born into a great destiny beyond his understanding, who must travel to the most dangerous planet in the universe to ensure the future of his family and his people. As malevolent forces explode into conflict over the planet's exclusive supply of the most precious resource in existence-a commodity capable of unlocking humanity's greatest potential-only those who can conquer their fear will survive."
Dune is currently scheduled for a December 18, 2020 release date and boasts an impressive, star-studded cast that includes Timothée Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Oscar Isaac, Josh Brolin, Stellan Skarsgård, Dave Bautista, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Zendaya, David Dastmalchian, Chang Chen, Sharon Duncan-Brewster, Charlotte Rampling, Jason Momoa, and Javier Bardem. This comes to us from Empire.