Nobody likes to have a movie spoiled for them before it comes out, but studios have become incredibly afraid of details of new movies being leaked early on. While this is certainly understandable, it's possible it's all getting slightly out of hand, as Josh Brolin recently got in trouble for "spoiling" some details about the shooting location for the new version of Dune. He let people know he was in the desert.
Josh Brolin recently appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live as part of the promotion of Avengers: Endgame but talk eventually shifted to one of Brolin's upcoming movies, Denis Villenueve's remake of Dune. During one of Brolin's off days from the production, he posted some video of himself in Jordan, enjoying the impressive and vast desert scenery...
So, I was in Jordan and we were in the sand and I was on a little vacation, I had a few days off. I went around… anyway, I put it on my Stories and I had never done that before. I was apparently bored even though it was kind of historically amazing. So I was filming myself—which I don’t understand. I was in the middle of nowhere and there was internet! That was the first weird thing.
The clip in question appears to be the one below, which Josh Brolin filmed from the back of a camel.
While the video seems pretty innocuous, apparently it upset some people at the studio. Josh Brolin tells Jimmy Kimmel that he then got a call telling him that he was violating social media guidelines by revealing information about where Dune was filming, something which struck him as odd considering the movie is called Dune. According to Brolin...
Then I did this whole Story on it and then someone called me eventually and they said, ‘Hey listen, we have guidelines.’ That’s a word I don’t deal with very well. They said, ‘We have guidelines, there’s been some red flags. So, I had a conversation; I just didn’t deal with it very well. It was like, Jason Momoa doing Aquaman and telling him when he’s off he can’t take a picture of himself in water anywhere else. I was like, ‘It’s sand! It’s called Dune. Everybody knows.'
It's completely understandable that studios would want to keep details of movies secret. There's a feeling, regardless of how true, that if people know too much about a movie before it comes out they're less likely to see it. Of course, in the case of Dune, there's an entire novel that will basically give away the whole story right now.
On top of that, It's not like Josh Brolin was taking pictures of the actual set. He took pictures of sand. As he says, it's in the title, nobody should be all that shocked.
Brolin then took to Instagram again following his conversation and shared more pictures of sand. This might be the part where he says he didn't deal with it very well. He's clearly angry about the whole thing.
It does seem like getting mad at Josh Brolin for pictures of sand was more than a little over the top. Dune is one of those stories that one would think most people have a basic understanding of even if they've never read the book or seen the David Lynch movie. Knowing that the movie filmed in Jordan doesn't really tell anybody anything by itself.
Having social media guidelines is great, but implementing them with some logic wouldn't hurt. Even if Brolin technically violated them, this seems like the sort of thing you can just let go. Also, he's Josh Brolin.
Check out Josh Brolin's complete comments on Jimmy Kimmel Live in the clip below.
Denis Villenueve's Dune, which will follow the first half of the original Frank Herbert novel, is set for release in November 2020.
