Dune's Sandworms Looked Even More Terrifying In Early Concept Art
For nearly 60 years, Frank Herbert's seminal science fiction classic has been one of the great white whales of film. As longtime fans will recall, "Dune" is a story that even a visionary filmmaker like David Lynch struggled to bring to life. However, with Denis Villeneuve's sequel to his acclaimed 2021 adaptation of the story just around the corner, fans have more reason to be excited than ever.
Of course, one of the most pivotal parts that had to be nailed for "Dune" to come to life on the big screen was its dreaded Sandworms. Massive subterranean behemoths, the creatures exist as arguably the most dangerous and iconic alien species in the series.
While most fans are pleased with how they look in Villeneuve's "Dune," they could have looked much different based on early concept art. Concept artist Seungjin Woo shared images of his initial designs for the Sandworms from back in 2018 on ArtStation, and they're certainly imposing. In fact, they may even be more terrifying than the final design that would eventually emerge in the 2021 film.
The original Sandworm design is even scarier
The first thing that fans may see when they look at Seungjin Woo's designs for the Sandworm is their similarity to the visuals in another popular science fiction franchise, "Stranger Things." With the unfolding flower-type head that is reminiscent of the dreaded Demogorgon in the Netflix series, their gigantic maws are even more disturbing to look at than the final design.
The caption for Woo's art reads, "Early sandworm concept arts I made for the Dune(2021) back in early 2018 and these were featured in the artbook of [the] film 'The Art and Soul of Dune.'" While the first piece of art shows the massive open mouth of a Sandworm in relation to the size of a tiny bird in its maw, the second shows other key layers of the creatures.
Here, we see how small a person would be standing in front of a sandworm and also how tiny a rider from Arrakis (or Caladan, as the case may be) would be on its back. Along with the change in design, the size of the Sandworms also looks to be somewhat bigger than they appear in the first film. Of course, we will likely be seeing much larger Sandworms when "Dune: Part Two" arrives on March 15, 2024. In the meantime, art like this will likely make fans even more excited to see the second half of the story.