Alejandro Jodorowsky’s epic 1970 Dune storyboard is up for auction

Often described as the greatest movie that was never made, Alejandro Jodorowsky’s Dune was slated to become one of the greatest cinematic feats in history. The 15-hour space epic would feature Orson Welles (Citizen Kane) as Baron Harkonnen, Salvador Dalí as the emperor, Shaddam IV, and an accompanying soundtrack by Pink Floyd. But the project ran out of funding before it could see the light of day.

Now, Christie’s is auctioning off the storyboard for the ill-fated film. The storyboard – that Frank Herbert once described as “the size of a phonebook” – is one of 10 copies and is estimated to sell between €25,000 EUR and €35,000 EUR ($29,000 USD and $40,000 USD).

The piece will hit auction in Paris on November 22 and will be on display to the public in Christie’s Paris gallery from November 18 to 22. For more information, check out Christie’s.

If you don’t have a spare few thousand dollars to spare, however, you can take a look at the storyboard (featuring original illustrations by Moebius and H.R. Giger, AKA the Swiss painter behind Alien’s concept art) in the gallery above.

Then, we recommend that you watch Jodorowsky’s Dune, the 2013 documentary chronicling the filmmaker’s failed attempt at bringing Herbert’s space epic to the big screen. Ironically, the film scored rave reviews at Cannes at the time of its release and was the most successful film associated with the book to date – that is, until the release of Denis Villeneuve’s Dune last month.