Why Kevin Costner’s Dune Audition Didn’t Work

Everyone knows it now There are a lot of things wrong with “Dune” 1984. The film has experienced particular infamy since David Lynch and Universal Pictures unleashed it on the world, as the $40 million sci-fi epic tanked at the box office and sparked nothing but critical disdain. However, there are those who claim this “Dune” is much better than its reputation suggestsand Denis Villeneuve’s recent big-screen adaptation of Frank Herbert’s novel has given rise to plenty of revisionism about 1984’s Dune.

One of the most interesting things about Lynch’s ill-fated film, however, is not necessarily how critics and audiences overlooked its many charms in 1984, but how many what-if questions surrounded the project. For example, the number of directors lined up to shoot this film was nothing short of dizzying, with everyone from Ridley Scott to David Lean circling the project. After Lynch was finally confirmed as director, he spent six months working on a script with co-writers Eric Bergren and Christopher De Vore, but dropped much of what the trio had created and wrote the film a whopping five times new.

What would Dune look like if Ridley Scott had been at the helm? How much less “Lynchian” would it be if the director had preserved the contributions of Bergen and De Vore? Perhaps even more intriguing is the question of how the film would have fared if Lynch had cast some of the many actors who were once considered for the film and have since become major stars – including a young Kevin Costner, who probably would have done so If he had played the lead role, he would have had a completely different career.

There are several tantalizing what-ifs when it comes to the casting of Dune (1984). For example: David Lynch denied Glenn Close a role in Dune Handing over the role of Lady Jessica to Francesca Annis (who did an outstanding job). Early on, Lynch was also determined to cast Val Kilmer as Paul Atreides before Kyle MacLachlan auditioned and impressed the director so much that he immediately cast him in the lead role instead.

Before MacLachlan was cast, Kilmer wasn’t the only choice for Paul that Lynch had in mind. In Max Evry’s book “A Masterpiece in Disarray: David Lynch’s Dune – An Oral History” (above Crushable), the cast and crew recall an elaborate casting process in which several actors were considered for the lead role. Craig Campobasso, production assistant, revealed that alongside Michael Biehn, Lewis Smith and Kilmer, a young Kevin Costner also did screen tests for the role of Paul Atreides. However, according to the assistant, some of these actors, including Costner, simply couldn’t quite do the role justice.

“Michael Biehn didn’t do it justice,” said Campobasso, “Kevin Costner didn’t. It’s not that they’re bad actors; they just didn’t meet the criteria for Paul-Muad’Dib because that’s what you’re looking for helped him put on Paul-Muad’Dib’s costume and I could sense his nervousness about it.” “

Although Kyle MacLachlan landed the lead role in David Lynch’s Dune, it turned out to be a double-edged sword. After the film bombed and was derided by critics, the actor felt something of an outcast in Hollywood, he said Los Angeles Times He felt his career was “like a ship, you could feel it sinking.” MacLachlan had to wait for Lynch to rescue him from the post-Dune obscurity by casting him in Blue Velvet. In that sense, both Kevin Costner and Val Kilmer were probably lucky in this particular case, as there is no guarantee that Lynch would have done the same for them.

In Costner’s case, he would get his breakthrough just a year after Dune’s debut, playing a cowboy named Jake in 1985’s Silverado, the film that gave him his start Costner’s lifelong love affair with Westerns is one of the reasons he continues to produce them today. He then played his first leading role in “The Untouchables” in 1987, thereby securing his reputation as one of Hollywood’s brightest young stars. That’s probably a lot more than he could have hoped for had he hosted Lynch’s ill-fated sci-fi spectacle – although Costner might not have struggled as MacLachlan did. Hell, he might have even brought something unique to Dune that would have tempered the critical reaction. But given the magnitude of this film’s disaster, probably not.