Dune behind-the-scenes book will have its own Hans Zimmer score

Hans Zimmer has been a fan of Frank Herbert’s Dune since he was a child, so when Denis Villeneuve announced that he would be adapting the novel to the big-screen, Zimmer knew he had to compose the score. Doing so meant that he had to turn down working with frequent collaborator Christopher Nolan on Tenet, but he just couldn’t resist the call of Dune. In fact, Zimmer was so inspired that he composed not one, but two scores for Dune: one for the film itself… and another for the behind-the-scenes book coming out later this year.

As revealed by io9, Hans Zimmer decided to write some musical accompaniment for The Art and Soul of Dune, a behind-the-scenes book written by Dune’s executive producer Tanya Lapointe. Zimmer’s score will be available to download and stream when the book is released on October 22nd. The book will be available in two editions, with the standard edition running you $50 and the limited edition going for nearly $600. The super pricey one will be limited to 700 copies, all of which will be signed by Tanya Lapointe, Denis Villeneuve, Timothée Chalamet, Josh Brolin, and the director of photography Greig Fraser. There are plenty of other goodies as well, but you’ll have to check out io9 for the full list. How many behind-the-scenes books have their own score? Not many I’d imagine.

I have been hugely excited to see what Denis Villeneuve has up his sleeves with Dune, and each and every trailer and image has only gotten me more pumped. I can only hope that the film is successful enough that we’ll get to see the story conclude with the second part. Dune screenwriter Eric Roth confirmed earlier this year that the film only covers the first half of Frank Herbert’s novel and that he’s written a treatment for the second part, which will likely only happen if the first film is a success.

I [wrote] a treatment to show the estate what we could do with the second half, but I’ve got to tell you that I think I’ve done as much as I can do. I also have other things I want to do. I’m 76 years old, and these things obviously take a long time to do. And so I have a few others I’m excited about. And hopefully people love Dune so much that they do want to have a second part, and I’m sure Denis would do amazing version of that.

Dune will premiere at the Venice International Film Festival on September 3, 2021, and will be released in theaters and on HBO Max on October 22, 2021.