Jon Spaihts is a very busy man. Not only is he currently writing “Dune: Part Two” with Denis Villeneuve, but he’s exploring other aspects of Frank Herbert’s universe beyond his one-time association with a television spin-off, “Dune: The Sisterhood.” Throw in “Exodus,” an original screenplay for “I Am Mother” director Grant Sputore and a – breaking news – adaptation for acclaimed director Park Chan-wook and it’s clear the pandemic hasn’t slowed him down. Oh, yes, he also earned his first Oscar nomination alongside Villeneuve and Eric Roth in the Adapted Screenplay category for “Dune: Part One.” Creatively, Spaihts is booming.
READ MORE: Florence Pugh being courted to star in “Dune: Part Two”
Speaking to The Playlist this past week, Spaihts was open about the potential for a third “Dune” film after the currently greenlit “Dune: Part Two” which is expected to hit theaters on October 20, 2023.
“‘Dune Messiah’ is the next book, and it’s one of three books with ‘Dune,’ ‘Dune Messiah,’ and ‘Children of Dune,’ that covers the lives of the characters we meet in the first novel,” Spaihts says. “Subsequently, there’s a giant leap in time and the series gets stranger and more epic as it carries on. But ‘Dune Messiah’ picks up years after the close of ‘Dune,’ and yes, Denis has talked seriously about making that film as well, as a conclusion of the trilogy. ‘Dune Messiah’ is a very interesting book, which in some ways, deconstructs Dune and plays as a cautionary tale, even more than ‘Dune’ does, about the dangers of blending religion and politics, the hazards of following charismatic leaders, and the dangerous struggle that’s always alive between the individual and institutions.”
Over the course of our conversation, Spaihts reflects on the significance of his Oscar nomination, the long and late-night hours of writing with Villeneuve, and a peek at his very busy slate.
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The Playlist: Easiest question first. What was your reaction to the Oscar nomination?
Jon Spaihts: Surprise and delight. I work in big genre films for the most part and science fiction is notoriously Oscar invisible. So, to be honored as a big genre epic is an unexpected pleasure.
No doubt. And by the way, did you go to the Oscars luncheon yesterday?
I did.
And how was that experience?
Brilliant. To some extent, it drove home exactly how rarefied this air is, just because I was rubbing elbows with some very luminary figures. And for me, it brought back the old thought that everyone says about Oscars, which is, it’s an honor just to be nominated.
Yeah.
But it absolutely is. And I feel it that way. I don’t even think seriously about the prospect of winning. It’s just thrilling to be at this place and see the work that I and so many other artists did together, being honored in this way.
Well, I have to ask you know, it’s often that many people work on a screenplay together, but from what I’ve read, and this might be incorrect, you, Eric, and Denny, almost worked from the beginning on this, all together. Is that correct?
We worked in very close collaboration. In general, screenwriters work sequentially rather than in parallel. And that was largely true for me and Eric, with him on early, and me on late, and both of us in close collaboration with Denny. But even then, there was some overlap and interplay.
So I guess that was my question. What was the process? Was it like, one of you was more focused on structure, and the other person was more trying to build out the world? In legit curiosity, how were your strengths I guess, used to fashion the screenplay?
I think fundamentally, each of us was taking a crack at the whole hog in terms. So, Eric Roth came on and wrote a couple of huge epic drafts before I was involved with the project. He, of course, was working very closely with Denny during that time, and then Denny put on the writing hat and reworked that script himself, to produce a hybrid of both of their visions. And when they brought me aboard, that was the first thing I saw.
Ah.
And it was full of good stuff, but they were looking for clarity. And what I ended up doing was going back to the novel and doing a clean adaptation from that book, which I know extremely well. And in about six weeks, did a draft straight from the book, of the first half of the novel. And then I laid that side by side with the Villain of Wrath draft. And in the Villain of Wrath draft, there were these wonderful moments of invention in particular places where I could clearly see Denis being a filmmaker on the page, and visually inventing and speaking a language of cinema. And I imported all of those moments into my draft and created a kind of omnibus of all of our work together. And then Denis and I entered a period of intense collaboration, which ran in spurts. And the way it worked is that I would fly to wherever he was and book a hotel suite down the road. And at 9:00 AM, he’d roll in and we’d sit in the living room and we’d talk story until lunch. We’d grab a sandwich, come back, talk story again. And at two or three in the afternoon, he would leave to put his director hat on and continue prep work for the film. And I would start writing. And I would write pages until midnight, send him what I had, and go to sleep. And at 9:00 AM in the morning, he’d walk back in, and we’d do it again.
And those are very intense days and we would do that for a week or 10 days each time. And by the end of that process, I was exhausted and usually upside down. So at the end of the time, he’d come in at nine and we’d talk until three and he’d walk out and I would collapse and fall asleep until 10 or 11 at night. And then I’d wake up and start writing. And at six in the morning, I’d send him what I had and take a shower. And he would come in having read the pages at nine o’clock and we’d start again. What this allowed was a kind of communion, which a writer rarely gets with his director. And instead of trying to intuit his vision and guess at what he wanted, we were in constant communication. And so I was able, in this way, working so closely with him, to turn around complete revisions of the screenplay from end to end in a week or a little more than a week, knowing that every word of it was approved by the director as we came out the other end. And in that, we were able to work very, very quickly together. We did that twice in Montreal and two or three times in Budapest.
Obviously, you wanted to help facilitate his vision, but as someone who knew the book so well, was there anything, in particular, you wanted to make sure made it into the screenplay?
Honestly, just the spirit of it, as I understood it. There was no singular event that felt more essential than the others. It is a very faithful adaptation and Denis who is as familiar with the book as I am, from the beginning set out to make a faithful rendition. So we had that in common. For me, it was just trying to convey the intricate detail and interplay of ideas from the book. At its best, the novel feels truly profound and renders a vivid world in which you can feel the research and the thinking that Frank Herbert put into the creation of his universe. And I wanted that depth and richness to surface in the screenplay, despite having a vastly smaller amount of real estate to work with.
For sure. I’m hoping that the process to write the second screenplay was not as strenuous for you?
Well, it’s ongoing.
Oh.
Denis and I are passing the script back and forth. He’s got it right at the moment, but as you can imagine, his life is a little fraught these days, between prep on the second film and the enormous burdens of award season. Success is a harsh taskmaster in film.
It is.
So no, it has not been quite as fraught as that first time, but it has plenty of challenges of itself.
Because of the world, you have built, are there any thoughts of leaving the door open at the end of the second film for a third film? I believe “Messiah” is the next book in that respect.
Yes. Frank Herbert wrote six novels, I believe, with a seventh partially completed upon his death that was completed preposterously by his son.
Right. I remember that part.
“Dune Messiah” is the next book, and it’s one of three books with “Dune,” “Dune Messiah,” and “Children of Dune,” that covers the lives of the characters we meet in the first novel. Subsequently, there’s a giant leap in time and the series gets stranger and more epic as it carries on. But “Dune Messiah” picks up years after the close of “Dune,” and yes, Denis has talked seriously about making that film as well, as a conclusion of the trilogy. Dune Messiah is a very interesting book, which in some ways, deconstructs Dune and plays as a cautionary tale, even more than Dune does, about the dangers of blending religion and politics, the hazards of following charismatic leaders, and the dangerous struggle that’s always alive between the individual and institutions.
So it’s possible, at least, that even the second film might at least hint at what could come in “Dune Messiah”?
I think that’s right. There are a few tantalizing strands that lead into the future and suggest that we might not be done in this universe, despite the fact that the ending of Dune as a novel, which will be the ending of the second film, is a very satisfying conclusion. There are a number of ways in which the book also sounds ominous notes, and there are hints of foreboding about what made be yet to come.
I also wanted to ask you, I know that you had been working on a TV series that was supposed to be part of this world as well, “Dune the Sisterhood.” Is that still in play at all?
Oh, that is carrying on and I’m not allowed to talk about it very much. But that effort is alive and well. I ended up getting moved off of it to work, not just on “Dune: Part Two,” but to investigate other cinematic prospects in the “Dune” universe, which we are still talking about and which, again, I’m not allowed to say very much about. But it is a very rich world in which to play, and I think it is ripe with opportunities for storytelling in every direction.
I know you’re not really allowed to give many details, but do you think the series is close to happening, or is it still just in the development phase?
They’re well down the road, but I honestly don’t know the details of the timing.
Got it. Obviously, “Dune” has been, obviously a big part of your life now for a number of years, have you had time to distract yourself by working on anything else in the meantime to sort of at least clear your brain at times?
Yes. All screenwriters in the thick of the game are invariably overburdened with overdue homework.
Because you never know whether your involvement with any given project is going to be one quick draft and done.
Yep.
Or an endless series of drafts, polishes, and informal tweaks, leading to production. And so, you have always got a job lined up behind the one you’re doing, whether or not you’ll end up having time to get to it. So my wife and I co-wrote a film very recently. That was our first collaboration. Her name’s Johanna Watts, and she’s a fantastic creative partner and has been my first reader and indie filmmaker with me for years. That was our first joint writing effort. We’re going to be doing more of those. I wrote a big Sci-Fi epic for an Australian director named Grant Sputore which I’m extremely excited about. It was a project called “Exodus.” And we’ll be working very shortly with director Park Chan-wook, on a novel adaptation that he’s been pursuing for some time, and I am a devout fan of that filmmaker. So yeah, there are a lot of pots being stirred at any given time.
I was unaware of this. Is this an English language film for Park?
I believe it will be, but the underlying property is not an English language book.
And by the way, did I miss this? Was this announced?
I think this is still in the early days.
That’s exciting. Lastly, knowing what had gone on with the pandemic and you had worked on this film way beforehand and all the concerns that people had about it being on HBO Max and being in theaters. What was your reaction? What was your, I don’t want to put words into your mouth, relief, of how well it did in theaters? What did that mean to you as someone who had worked on it for so long?
Well, it was oxygen and it meant that we might be able to finish. The really frightening prospect when the pandemic came crashing down was that if the economic hardships of COVID were to hurt the film too badly, we might never be able to finish the vision of “Dune” and make part two. And I think that was the fear on everybody’s minds. Honestly, in the early days of the pandemic, it wasn’t clear whether theater chains or entire movie studios might not perish.
Yeah.
In that difficult time. So, it was very scary for everyone for quite a while. And what the success of the film meant, even under the hardships of pandemic times, was that we were going to get to carry on and that the film would find its audience and that we would get to finish the journey.
“Dune” is available on HBO Max.
