Dune Director Denis Villeneuve Shares Heartfelt Tribute To David Lynch After His Death

On January 15, 2025, the world learned that the groundbreaking and iconoclastic filmmaker David Lynch passed away at the age of 78 — and despite Lynch's public struggles with his health in recent years, it was still shocking that a man whose last name literally became an adjective for "weird, bonkers stuff in film and TV" had left this world. Unsurprisingly, the entertainment industry and the entire world banded together to mourn the loss and celebrate Lynch's incredible body of work ... and in a recent panel, ScreenRant heard director Denis Villeneuve weigh in on Lynch's passing at the Saturn Awards.

"Cinema is probably the closest artform, closest to dreams, awakened dreams," Villeneuve began. "And David Lynch was definitely the master, the one who brought us closest to this dream state." He expressed his sincere wish of wanting to have had the chance to meet him, but production on the "Dune" movies kept the meet-up from happening. He continued, "I was wishing and dreaming to meet him once it would be finished just to, to pay homage to him."

As Villeneuve noted, the unexpected connection between the two acclaimed directors is that both have directed adaptations of Frank Herbert's "Dune" books, though, with all due respect to Lynch's legacy and work, Villeneuve's vision is more successful on many levels. (At least, it performed well critically and commercially, whereas Lynch's didn't in either category.) From there, Villeneuve shared his regrets that Lynch had a notoriously difficult time adapting Herbert's work while also noting that the struggle may have brought us some of the late creator's best work.

When David Lynch directed his version of "Dune" starring Kyle MacLachlan in 1984, he said he "died two times" during filming because he was forced to bow down to studio demands and didn't get final cut. The whole thing is a lot more complicated than that, and smarter people than I — including many of my colleagues here at /Film! — have gotten into the nitty-gritty of Lynch's "Dune" problems, but the point here is that Denis Villeneuve, who has now made two patently excellent (if less Lynchian) "Dune" films, wishes that the experience had been better, but also conceded that those two non-literal deaths led to some unbelievable movies. "I'm very sad that he did not have a nice experience with his own adaptation," Villeneuve also said at the Saturn Awards. 

"At the same time, from my understanding, the pain he endured during making his own version of 'Dune' brought to us 'Blue Velvet,' and then 'Wild at Heart' and all the ... there was an energy that came out of that. So, I don't know, it's very deeply sad that he left us. It's like, you know, there's some filmmakers that when he left, it's like a planet left the solar system. It's really like he was his own planet. But there's some comfort knowing that he was still totally alive, totally creative, that he wanted to do another project. He's still here. Anyway, I'm a big fan. Yes."

Before David Lynch passed away, it should be said that the two directors did make comments about how they both directed "Dune" — and they weren't nearly as sentimental as Denis Villeneuve's comments in the wake of Lynch's death. In 2023, Lynch told French outlet Cahiers du Cinema (via World of Reel) that he would never, ever watch Villeneuve's version of "Dune," quite clearly saying, "I will never watch it, and I don't even want you to tell me about it, ever." (The man rarely minced words.) So what did Villeneuve say?

Well, in early 2024, Villeneuve reflected on Lynch's take on the "Dune" novels during an interview on NPR's program Fresh Air (via The Wrap), saying that he saw the film when it came out as a teenager and it just didn't meet his expectations. "I was very excited when I learned that the book would be brought to the screen," Villeneuve said at the time. "I remember watching the movie and being very mesmerized and impressed by how David Lynch approached it. I was destabilized by some of his choices. David Lynch has a very strong identity as a filmmaker, of course, and it bled into the ... it's a fantastic interpretation of the book. But there were some choices that were made that was very far away from my sensibility."

There was never any real beef between the two directors as far as anyone knows, but in any case, you can watch both of their "Dune" movies now. Lynch's 1984 version and Villeneuve's two movies, "Dune" and "Dune: Part Two," are all available to stream on Max.