preserving the book’s spirit was paramount. “I was trying to be, as a filmmaker, as invisible as possible. I tried my best to keep the poetry of the book, the atmosphere, the colors, the smell, everything that I felt when I read the book. I tried.”

in Herbert’s Dune, computers and artificial intelligence have been banished. Humans try to develop the potential of the human brain, “which is actually the opposite of what we’re trying to do right now,” Villeneuve says.

he worries less about AI “than the fact that we behave like algorithms, as filmmakers. We’re in a very conservative time; creativity is restricted. Everything’s about Wall Street. What will save cinema is freedom and taking risks. And you feel the audience is excited when they see something they haven’t seen before.”