One of my favorite directors in the “game” right now is Peter Berg. He’s the silly-looking actor (he recently played a guest role on an episode of his TV show “Friday Night Lights“) turned director who brilliantly directed 2007’s “The Kingdom” with Jamie Foxx.

Berg’s style is Michael Mann and he uses real-looking actors in his films as well as a cinematography style which borrows from docu-drama cinema.

Now Paramount have announced that they will be re-hashing Frank Hebert’s classic science fiction novel “Dune” with Peter Berg attached to direct.

Former Universal executive, now producer Kevin Misher secured the book rights from the Herbert Estate for Paramount. The 1965 novel is a futuristic story set on a remote desert planet Arrakis which produces the empire’s sole source of the spice Melange — used for distant space travel. An empirewide power struggle breaks out over the control of the spice.

The property, which spawned a classic 1984 David Lynch film as well as a 2000 Sci Fi Channel miniseries starring William Hurt. So Berg’s look and feel will certainly be a third vision.

Paramount is currently out to writers with the hopes that this film will have tent-pole potential. Berg’s upcoming tent-pole picture “Hancock” starring Will Smith releases July 2nd for Sony.

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