Peter Berg Confirmed to Direct New Dune Film

May direct Edwin A. Salt while waiting out the strike.

by | December 23, 2007 | Comments

Score another one for the rumor mill: Peter Berg has been confirmed as the director of a new Dune.

Ain’t It Cool News floated Berg’s name back in October, but the first official word on the subject came from MTV Movies, where Berg was quoted as saying his involvement is “a done deal” and that “if it weren’t for the writer’s strike, we’d be in it right now.”

Fan reaction to the Berg rumor was far from unanimously positive, but skeptics should be happy to hear that he calls himself a “huge fan of the book,” and plans on making his Dune “big big big.”

While waiting for the Dune script, Berg may wind up helming the oft-discussed Edwin A. Salt, the Tom Cruise spy thriller that’s been waiting for a director for months.

With an average Tomatometer rating of 54%, Berg has shown a remarkable ability to wow the critics (Friday Night Lights, 82 percent) as well as annoy them (The Kingdom, 52 percent). David Lynch‘s take on the Frank Herbert books — which Berg says “left the door wide open for a remake” — divided critics, garnering a 63 percent Tomatometer rating. (Roger Ebert called it “a real mess, an incomprehensible, ugly, unstructured, pointless excursion into the murkier realms of one of the most confusing screenplays of all time.”)

What say you, RT faithful? Do you like Berg’s chances, or are you convinced he’ll fail? And most importantly, who do you like to star in this thing? We’ve undoubtedly got years of gossip and speculation ahead of us, so why not start now?

Source: MTV Movies