Before House of Gucci, Ridley Scott spent some time with House Atreides.

At 84, Scott has had a busy year, releasing a pair of adult dramas, The Last Duel and House of Gucci, within months of each other. But long before a worldwide pandemic pushed those two movies into the same calendar year, Scott directed two of the most influential science fiction movies of all time: Alien (1979) and Blade Runner (1982).

But, as Scott reaffirmed in a recent interview with the Inside Total Film podcast, he came close to putting his stamp on another iconic sci-fi universe. Before David Lynch’s infamous bomb and Denis Villeneuve’s recent box office success, Ridley Scott spent seven months in pre-production on his own adaptation of Frank Herbert's Dune.