Video-game-maker turned filmmaker Hideo Kojima is pointing to “Dune: Part Two” — and its premium large-screen experience, specifically — as the future of film.
The “Death Stranding” creator took to X (formerly known as Twitter) to applaud Denis Villeneuve‘s epic sequel. Kojima also admitted he was getting a little too comfortable with the idea of streaming movies on a phone or tablet. “Dune: Part Two,” however, was an exception for him — and it was an exceptional experience.
“Even as a movie buff, I was beginning to think it was time for me to start watching movies on my smartphone or tablet. However, when I watched ‘Dune: Part 2,’ my rigid ways of thinking crumbled like sand!” Kojima wrote. “It meticulously depicts the non-existent world of Arrakis, bringing it to life with unprecedented detail and realism. While portraying revolution and love, fear and awe on the same axis, it magnificently captivates destruction and aestheticism in beautiful layers.”
Kojima continued, “This film shouts, ‘This is cinema!‘ and provides the ‘spice’ that we need to live. This masterpiece of Denis will likely become a ‘resistance’ that will significantly delay the spread of subscription services.”
Villeneuve himself shared a similar message about “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” in 2023. Villeneuve told the Associated Press that “the future of cinema is IMAX and the large formats” for event-driven screenings.
“The audience wants to see something that they cannot have at home, that they cannot have on streaming,” Villeneuve said at the time. “They want to experience an event.”
Kojima is currently at work on a live-action A24 adaptation of “Death Stranding.” (He won’t be directing, but will be doing a whole lot; the film does not yet have a director.)
“Just to be clear, I am deeply involved in producing, supervising, plotting, look, design and content of the film adaptation of DS, just not in charge of directing,” Kojima tweeted earlier this year after the “Death Stranding” movie was first reported in December 2022.
The 2019 game already had a cinematic presence thanks to the voice and likeness casting of Norman Reedus, Mads Mikkelsen, Léa Seydoux, Guillermo del Toro, Elle Fanning, Shioli Kutsuna, and Margaret Qualley, with Guillermo del Toro and Nicolas Winding Refn in supporting roles.
