With Dune: Part Two currently in cinemas (and receiving rave reviews), our first feature on the wonderful world of alternative movie posters, or AMPs as they're often abbreviated, dives headfirst into the sandy, orange hues of Denis Villeneuve's sci-fi epic.
Upon announcement, 2021's Dune was bound to capture the imagination of artists all over the world. Frank Herbert's celebrated novel had proved alluring to filmmakers before, with David Lynch's infamous but largely disastrous 1984 adaptation adding to the intrigue surrounding Villeneuve's two-parter. It seems apt, therefore, to start with a nod to the novel in Retrofuturum‘s beautiful alternative artwork for the first instalment of Villeneuve's 21st-century adaptation, a piece that takes its cue from the pulpy sci-fi covers of the 1960s. Also included here is Kevin Carter‘s wonderfully grungey poster that calls to mind The War of the Worlds or even the classic “I Want to Believe” poster from The X-Files.
Below, Hubert Pelerin‘s mass of geological textures folds inward towards a beautiful planetary blue ‘eye.' Edgar Ascensão‘s equally cosmic artwork features a burning orange sky, a symmetrical adaptation of the film's title treatment and a hand filled with sand, pouring off its edges like a timer (bonus points too for the little finger stunted into the sandworm's now iconic mouth).
It's a mouth that's front and centre of Nada Maktari‘s shimmering, golden poster that showcases the designer's architectural background. Almost mathematical in its design and intricacy, the swirling lines and shapes build up to form a twisting sandworm emerging from the darkness. Alexey Lysogorov‘s arresting artwork combines geometric shapes and a dynamic title font to create a poster that captures the mechanical, industrial power and dynamism in an art-deco style.
There's a lovely continuity in these pulpy posters from Spanish artist Rafa Orrico Diez. Rafa's distinctive style is reminiscent of the Polish School of Posters from the 1950s where image and handwritten text combined to create art, not advertising.
Haley Turnbull‘s twin posters for parts one and two are woven together from different images to create a smooth collage, with the sand and shadows flowing from one side to another. Designed to sit perfectly side-by-side, Haley brings her own visual flare to a more ostensibly commercial look.
A lot has already been said about the now infamous Dune popcorn bucket, but one piece of tie-in merchandise we'd love to see are these South Korean souvenir tickets printed by the Megaboxon cinema chain. Their Instagram page is well worth perusing for their stunning collection of custom-made tickets.
To finish, we go back to where it all began. Murugiah takes his own dazzling Dune movie artwork and refashions it as a book cover for Frank Herbert's 1965 novel…
We'll be back next month with a look at the films of Alex Garland in anticipation of the release of Civil War.
Dune: Part Two is currently in cinemas.
