Denis Villeneuve rebuffs Quentin Tarantino’s Dune criticism, says I don’t care

By Joe Allen Published November 9, 2024

Quentin Tarantino is not known for pulling any punches, and his recent remarks about Denis Villeneuve’s new Dune movies are no exception. Tarantino explained that he refuses to watch the new movies because he’s already seen David Lynch’s version of the story.

During a Q&A at Concordia University’s Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema in Montreal, Quebec, Villeneuve offered a response to the Oscar-winning director.

“I don’t care,” he said, as the room erupted in laughter, according to The Montreal Gazette. “It’s true. I agree with him that I don’t like this idea of recycling and bringing back old ideas. But where I disagree is that what I did was not a remake. It’s an adaptation of the book. I see this as an original.”

Villeneuve added that he and Tarantino are “very different human beings.”

This whole back and forth started after Tarantino appeared on Bret Easton Ellis’s podcast and explained that he doesn’t feel any need to see the Dune story again. 

“I saw [David Lynch’s] Dune a couple of times. I don’t need to see that story again,” he explained. “I don’t need to see spice worms. I don’t need to see a movie that says the word ‘spice’ so dramatically.”

“It’s one after another of this remake and that remake,” Tarantino added. “People ask, ‘Have you seen Dune? Have you seen Ripley? Have you seen Shōgun?’ And I’m like, no, no, no, no. There [are] six or seven Ripley books. If you do one again, why are you doing the same one that they’ve done twice already? I’ve seen that story twice before, and I didn’t really like it in either version, so I’m not really interested in seeing it a third time. If you did another story, that would be interesting enough to give it a shot anyway.”