Keep in mind I enjoyed reading Frank Herbert’s Dune. Heck, I even enjoyed David Lynch’s 1984 interpretation (as fascinating as it was, it wasn’t Dune; too nihilistic, too ugly).

So why am I pessimistic?

Dune is ambitious, BIG storytelling though the problem is that I am not sure there’s an audience for it large enough to support a big-budget treatment of the property.

Even one directed by the uber-talented Denis Villeneuve.

And that shouldn’t be interpreted as an aspersion of Villeneuve’s powers as a director because as I said, he’s really good at what he does but simply an acceptance of the likeliest truth: Dune isn’t a project that is well-suited for mega-sized budgets.

The last I heard they were talking about splitting the novel into two movies–a good idea–though I haven’t heard any estimates of potential budgets I suspect they’re going to be large, is in $150-250 million dollar ballpark.

And if that’s the case, that’s a HUGE problem because Villeneuve is coming off a box office failure–2017’s Blade Runner 2049–and despite his talent, he can’t keep directing expensive flops because no matter how talented, how well-intentioned, Hollywood is going to lose faith in him.

And that would be bad for everyone.