Berg digs Dune

I never got into DUNE — the book was impenetrable to me as a kid, and David Lynch’s adaptation was just a bit too f*cked-up for a young zealot of more simplistic STAR WARS style sci-fi, and I’ve just never revisited it.

Director/writer/actor Peter Berg is apparently a big fan, though, and plans to direct his own feature version of the material. Berg (whose most recent effort THE KINGDOM is easily one of my faves of 2007), tells MTV that his involvement with the sandy planet is basically a “done deal”, and that his scope for the project will be “big big big”.

But fans of Frank Herbert’s epic tale of feuding empires and worm spice might not want to get too excited just yet — Berg’s DUNE has no script and will have to wait until the strike weather clears for a writer (yet to be selected) to even start, and he’s first planning to make Tom Cruise’s spy movie EDWIN A. SALT. And Berg has a penchant for getting attached to projects that never materialize (e.g., SPLINTER CELL, THE LOSERS, BRAN MAK MORN, THE MISSION, TRUCK 44, DEN OF THIEVES, NAUTICA, and — seriously — HIP-HOP COPS).