39 - The $3M Dune Book Sale - With Frank Pavich, Soby and Dan Lanigan

The Filmumentaries Podcast

This is the second episode in a matter of two days. I only just released episode 38 with Howard Kazanjian yesterday. BUT I felt the need to get this episode and it’s story out there because it’s one that I’ve been chasing since 22nd Nov 2021.It started while I was at work at F1 talking with my friend Will Buxton. Will is a presenter and a big movie fan and we got talking about the imminent auction for the Jodorowsky’s Dune pitch book.
So if you don’t know this story, I implore you to seek out the 2013 documentary “Jodorowsky’s Dune” and watch it before you listen to this podcast.But if you want to go ahead now and listen I’ll give you a quick summary. So back in the mid 1970’s the Chilean-French director and performer Alejandro Jodorowsky became consumed with producing a film version of Frank Herbert’s Dune. He managed to pool the resources of people like Dan O’Bannon, Moebius, Giger and Chris Foss.
Much of the talent that went on to work on seminal sci-fi films and indeed inspire a whole generation of filmmakers. So Jodorowsky put together a pitch book. This thing is huge with thousands of illustrations, storyboards, costume designs, architectural designs by these artists with the intention of sending it around all the Hollywood studios to convince them to buy his idea for the movie and let him direct it. Ultimately this endevour failed but its influence still resonates strongly today.One of these hallowed Dune books sold for $42500 in 2019.
And on the 22nd November this year another sold but this time it went for $3 Million dollars. All thanks to one man stepping in and buying it on behalf of a collective who at that point had managed to raise $750,000 dollars. (As of today that amount has topped $11M).That man’s name is Soby. He was some what of a mystery to me for several days but I managed to connect with him over twitter (thanks to Will Buxton for the heads up) and we got chatting.
He agreed to come on the podcast to talk through just what went down, and WHY!It then occurred to me that I should contact the director of the documentary Jodorwosky’s Dune, a guy called Frank Pavich. Again after a quick search I made contact with Frank and he was also keen to join having seen the story in the press himself. I then wondered if I could get my friend Dan Lanigan, prop collector and co-creator of Disney+’s Prop Culture. Dan was also very keen and I knew he’d bring his unique perspective to the conversation.
To my knowledge somewhat of an exclusive - this is the first podcast interview with Soby regarding the Dune book sale. And to have both Frank and Dan involved is such a treat.
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