The Kingdom's Peter Berg takes on Dune

Up until a couple of days ago, Very Bad Things and Friday Night Lights had very little in common with Frank Herbert’s legendary novel Dune. But now, they will have a strong bond, as the director of the dark comedy and dark sports drama, respectively, takes his first stab at science fiction (or his second stab, if you consider Jeremy Piven playing a diplomat in The Kingdom to be a truly otherworldly occurrence).

That’s right, Peter Berg will direct a feature adaptation of Dune. Although no script or actors are yet in place, Berg already has quite a lot to (not) work with, because Dune has appeared on both the big and small screens before. In 1984, the enigmatic David Lynch gave it is his best shot, and in 2000, the Sci Fi Channel produced an epic Dune miniseries.

After the success of The Kingdom and with big expectations for this summer’s Will Smith film Hancock, Berg is a big name, and when Dune 3.0 sees the light of day, the word “epic” will likely be thrown around quite a bit.