No one is saying that Frank Herbert’s fictional universe of Dune doesn’t have potential. But giving the green light to a project for a branding issue, to take advantage of intellectual property, can have its drawbacks. And, in the case of Dune: The Sisterhood, the television prequel designed to drag those interested in Denis Villeneuve’s Dune films to the HBO Max streaming service, the adversities are piling up one after another. The last one, which has nothing anecdotal? Director Johan Renck and actress Shirley Henderson, who had one of the leading roles, have left the project.
“While Dune: The Sisterhood enters its pre-scheduled hiatus, some creative changes are being made to the production in an effort to create the best series possible and stay true to the reference material,” the platform explained in a statement to the Deadline portal. in which these changes are specified. Johan Renck has “completed” his work and, by mutual agreement, moves on to new projects; and, in the case of Henderson, his departure has not been made up so well, being informed that he “will no longer play Tula Harkonnen.”
The role of Tula Harkonnen was one of the main ones since Dune: The Sisterhood focuses on the origin of the Bene Gesserit, a kind of ecclesiastical order that guides the dynasties through plans that are impossible to elucidate for those who do not orchestrate them. So, 10,000 years before the events of the films starring Timothée Chalamet and Zendaya, the series was going to show the relationship between two Harkonnen sisters and their way of facing the challenges of humanity, creating a sect of subtle but powerful performances. more than effective impact on the development of the story.
Renck and Henderson’s marches, for the record, are two more on the tortuous path of this production, which started off on the wrong foot. Originally, when HBO Max gave it the green light in June 2019, Dune director Denis Villeneuve, who got Herbert’s adaptation nominated for an Oscar, had to be directly involved with the project: he was going to direct the first episode. Jon Spaihts, who wrote the script for the films, was also to be involved as a writer and showrunner, although Dana Calvo (Narcos) was eventually hired to share these creative duties with Spaihts.
Realizing the demands of a theatrical sequel to Dune and the difficulties of combining both projects into their schedules, both Spaihts and Villeneuve stepped down from The Sisterhood to focus on the new film with Chalamet. In the case of Spaihts, for the record, The Hollywood Reporter reported in November 2019 that Spaihts had actually been fired because his creative drift did not convince Legendary, the production company behind the project.
In July 2021, Diane Ademu-John (The Haunting of Bly Manor) was hired as the production’s new showrunner; In addition, in April 2022, Johan Renck was signed as director, a trusted man for HBO after winning two Emmy awards for Chenobyl as director and executive producer. But now neither of them keeps their job. Ademu-John left the reins of the writers’ room in November, which is now run by Alison Shapker (Westworld) solo, and Renck has moved on to other projects, Deadline notes, because HBO Max wasn’t sold on his approach to the material: his direction was too auteur and too far removed from Villeneuve’s style.
Now the unknowns that are on the table are the following. Will you basically start from scratch having to shoot all the material directed by Renck? Will only the scenes with Henderson be reshot? Will the new person in charge of directing have to redo the pilot in the editing room? Will these months serve for Shapker to finish debugging some scripts initially written by Ademu-John? And who will occupy the positions of Renck and Henderson, until now key figures in the project?
Dune: The Sisterhood, like The Penguin movie derived from Batman, is one of the Warner Bros Discovery projects that aims to take advantage of the audiovisual strength of the brand both in theaters and on television, trying to take the viewer from movie theaters cinema to the platform. Emily Watson (Breaking the Waves), Indira Varma (Game of Thrones), Mark Strong (Kingsman) and Travis Fimmel (Vikings), for now, are the key figures in the cast.
