Principal photography begins on November 22 in Prague on the SCI FI original mini-series Frank Herbert's Dune. The project's cast includes Academy Award-winning actor William Hurt as Duke Leto, and legendary Italian screen icon Giancarlo Giannini as the Emperor. Based on the best-selling novel, the three-part, six-hour mini-series is slated to air fourth quarter 2000 exclusively on SCI FI.

Frank Herbert's Dune will be written and directed by John Harrison (Tales from the Darkside: The Movie). Richard P. Rubinstein and Mitchell Galin, who worked together on Stephen King's The Stand and Pet Sematary, will serve as executive producers. Three-time Academy Award-winner Vittorio Storaro (Last Emperor, Reds, Apocalypse Now) is the cinematographer, and Theodor Pistek, winner of the Academy Award for Amadeus, is costume designer. César-winning production designer Miljen Kreka Kljakovic (Indochine, Delicatessen) and Emmy-nominated special effects supervisor Ernest Farino (From the Earth to the Moon) have also signed on.

Since its debut in 1965, Frank Herbert's Dune has sold over 12 million copies worldwide, becoming the best-selling science fiction adventure of all time. Now, based on John Harrison's new and faithful adaptation of the novel, viewers will finally have a chance to experience the legend as it was meant to be told ­ in all of its intricate detail, unfolding over six hours.

An epic messianic saga of fate, witchcraft, romance and political intrigue, Frank Herbert's Dune tells the adventures of young Paul "Muad'Dib," the heir to the noble House Atreides. In a world tenuously balanced by the universal need for the life-sustaining substance "Spice," alliances within the Great Houses of the Empire are governed by self-interest alone. When Paul's father, Duke Leto, is ordered by the Emperor to oversee production of the Spice, his family must relocate to "Dune" ­ the desert planet and sole source of the Spice. It is widely believed among the Houses that he who controls the Spice controls the Empire.

When Leto is assassinated, Paul and his mother, a beautiful "Bene Gesserit" witch with mysterious powers of mind control, escape into the desert. They survive the rigors of the desert only after being taken in by "the Fremen," a fierce desert people. They believe that Paul may be the messiah of their legends ­ the fulfillment of their prophecies that one day, a man born of a Bene Gesserit, would lead them in a great war and bring life back to their desert planet, Arrakis. Under his mother's tutelage, Paul hones his own considerable Bene Gesserit gifts, and begins to see into the future and realize his far-reaching ability to shape it.

Frank Herbert's Dune is a New Amsterdam production, in association with Victor Television Productions.

New Amsterdam Entertainment, Inc., is a New York City based developer and producer of theatrical feature films and TV programming. In addition to the current production of Frank Herbert's Dune, Rubinstein and Galin are developing Keller, a theatrical feature based on Lawrence Block's best seller Hit Man, with a screenplay by Maria Aitken and Patrick McGrath. Jeff Bridges is attached to star and will executive produce with Neil Koenigsberg.

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