Before Dune’s recent success, the first attempt to make a feature film version of the Frank Herbert novel goes back to the 1970s with Chilean-French director Alejandro Jodorowsky. When they couldn’t get a studio to make his version of Dune he pivoted towards a graphic novel instead.
Concept artist Jean Giraud (The Fifth Element, Willow, Alien) and Jodorowsky eventually would reunite for The Incal.
John Difool, a low-class detective in a degenerate dystopian world, finds his life turned upside down when he discovers an ancient, mystical artifact called “The Incal.” Difool’s adventures will bring him into conflict with the galaxy’s greatest warrior, the Metabaron, and will pit him against the awesome powers of the Technopope. These encounters and many more make up a tale of comic and cosmic proportions that has Difool fighting for not only his very survival but also the survival of the entire universe.
It’s been announced that Jodorowsky has endorsed a new feature film incarnation of The Incal from Taika Waititi. He’ll direct and co-write the script with Jemaine Clement (What We Do in the Shadows, Flight of the Conchords) and Peter Warren (Ghost Team, The History of Us).
Waititi is busy as any single filmmaker can get as he has wrapped on Next Goal Wins and Marvel’s Thor: Love & Thunder. He’s also developing a new live-action remake of Flash Gordon for 20th Century Studios, an untitled Star Wars movie for Lucasfilm, and is rumored to be attached to direct Scarlett Johansson in Disney’s Tower of Terror movie.
THE RONIN 