Denis Villeneuve Responds To Quentin Tarantino’s ‘Dune’ Gripe: “I Don’t Care”

Denis Villeneuve is unfazed by critics of his work — at least, the ones who haven’t seen his work.

After Quentin Tarantino said he’s “not interested” in seeing any remakes, the Dune director emphasized that “what I did was not a remake” as he responded to the critique during a recent appearance at Concordia University in Montreal.

“I don’t care. It’s true,” he said of Tarantino’s comments, according to The Montreal Gazette. “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, “But we are very different human beings.”

After David Lynch adapted Frank Herbert‘s 1965 novel Dune for his 1984 space opera, Villeneuve returned to the source material for his adaptation Dune (2021) and this year’s Dune: Part Two. The franchise has spawned the prequel series Dune: Prophecy, debuting Nov. 17 on HBO and Max.

Villeneuve told Deadline this month that he plans to start filming the film franchise’s third installment, based on Herbert’s ’69 novel Dune Messiah, in late 2025 or 2026.

“I saw [Lynch’s] Dune a couple of times,” Tarantino recently said on Bret Easton Ellis’ self-titled podcast. “I don’t need to see that story again. I don’t need to see spice worms. I don’t need to see a movie that says the word ‘spice’ so dramatically.”

Tarantino continued, “It’s one after another of this remake, and that remake. People ask ‘Have you seen Dune? Have you seen Ripley? Have you seen Shōgun?’ And I’m like, ‘No, no, no, no.’ There’s 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.”

Villeneuve’s Dune took home six Oscars, with both films earning a combined $1.12 billion globally.