This just in: The STW Daily News Round Up featuring all the news that’s fit to (digitally) print for Tuesday, July 19, 2022. Dune: Part Two begins filming and locks in a release date, and D.B. Cooper: Where Are You? gets a lot of love from critics, doesn’t make sense to audiences.
Dune: Part Two begins filming
When the first Dune installment was released simultaneously on HBO Max and in theaters last year, many viewers didn’t anticipate just how big a hit Denis Villeneuve’s remake would be.
Despite its streaming release, Dune grossed over $400 million at the box office worldwide and was ultimately nominated for 10 Oscars.
It’s now been reported that not only is Villeneuve back on for part two, but the entire crew from the first film, including composer Hans Zimmer, is returning as well.
Villeneuve said earlier this year, “I’m working with the same crew, everybody knows what to do, we know what it will look like. The movie will be more challenging, but we know where we are stepping. And the screenplay is written. So I feel confident. Frankly, the only big unknown for me right now is the pandemic.”
Dune: Part Two‘s official synopsis from Warner Bros. and Legendary reads “This follow-up film will explore the mythic journey of Paul Atreides as he unites with Chani and the Fremen while on a warpath of revenge against the conspirators who destroyed his family. Facing a choice between the love of his life and the fate of the known universe, he endeavors to prevent a terrible future only he can foresee.”
Dune: Part Two opens a week before Thanksgiving, 2023.
Netflix’s D.B. Cooper: Where Are You? gets a lot of love from critics, not so much from audiences
After all episodes were dropped last week on Netflix, D.B. Cooper: Where Are You? lost altitude pretty quick (pun intended). At one point sitting in the top 3 with The Sea Beast and Persuasion, the newest documentary on D.B. Cooper’s infamous escape from a Northwest flight in 1971 was hovering around the 10th spot as of Sunday the 17th.
But it gets worse. Not only did the miniseries drop swiftly in Netflix’s dynamic Top 10, it also again shows the disparity between critics and the general public. With a perfect score of 100% on the Tomatometer, D.B. Cooper: Where Are You? is pulling in only 25% approval from the audience.
One viewer wrote of the filmmaker’s obsession with the elderly man they believed to be D.B. Cooper, “Gross exhibition of witch hunters harassing an old man, filming him in spite of saying they weren’t. Gross. They kept saying whoever discovers the identity of Cooper will be more famous than Cooper, which is laughable imo. Anyway, godspeed, Cooper. And these witch hunters, find a different hobby, get a life.”
Another added “So, from minute one they berate some guy unloading a trailer, no reasoning, no hypothesis ? It’s like the gold digging programmes, no outcome , no plot, nothing of interest and ultimately, no gold ! Amateur sleuths are a very creepy bunch of people. P.S. A perfect example ( if any were needed ) of what the “professional” critics deem watchable.”
And while the series did seem like it had an enormous amount of promise (we too were excited), we believe this one was probably pushed out before all of its potential was realized, we’re not sure what the critics were thinking.