Costume Designs and Storyboards from the Dune That Never Was

One of the great science fiction films never made is Alejandro Jodorowsky’s Dune. In 1975, the playwright and director started work on an adaptation of Frank Herbert’s masterwork, which was to star the likes of Orson Welles, Salvador Dali, and Mick Jagger, use designs by H.R. Giger, and feature a soundtrack by Pink Floyd. Eventually the project was killed by lack of funds, but concept art by Jean “Moebius” Giraud offers a glimpse into what could have been.

Jodorowsky had a sweeping vision of Dune, planning to adapt the novel to his own psychedelic imagination (he said of the book, "I did not want to respect the novel, I wanted to recreate it. For me Dune did not belong to Herbert as Don Quixote did not belong to Cervantes, nor Edipo with Esquilo."). He planned to cast his own son, Brontis, as Paul Atreides, Orson Welles as the Baron, who would be nearly immobile at 300 pounds, and Salvador Dali as Emperor Shaddam IV, who would be insane and living on a planet made of gold. Dan O'Bannon was on board to write the script and Pink Floyd had agreed to do the music. Unfortunately, by October 1976, Jodorowsky had already spent $2 million and was working off a script that would have produced a 14-hour film.

Before working Dune, Moebius was known as the artist for western comic Blueberry, and would go on to work on films like Alien, Tron, Willowm and The Fifth Element. He would also collaborate with Jodorowsky again on the futuristic comic The Incal. Below are thousands of the character concepts and storyboard designs he created for the doomed Dune: