The planned big screen remake of Dune has hit a bit of a bump, with the news that director Peter Berg has left the project. Berg, responsible for the superb Friday Night Lights as well as the Will Smith hit Hancock, is currently attached to a big screen movie of the game Battleship, which is due for release in the summer of 2011. It's unclear whether Berg dropped out for scheduling reasons, or whether there were other problems.

So where does this leave Dune? The project is still very much going ahead, and there's a $175m budget attached to it too.  However, finding someone to steer the ship isn't the easiest of jobs.

Over at Pajiba, the site has revealed - with the help of an inside source - that the search for a new director is centering in on Neill Bloomkamp and Neil Marshall. The former gave Sony a hit out of nowhere last summer with District 9, while the latter has The Descent under his belt.

Pajiba reports that Marshall is the reported frontrunner for the job, but there's some reticence on the part of Paramount to hand over the keys to the franchise to someone without a sizeable hit on his CV. As good as The Descent was, a money-making-machine it wasn't. Either he or Bloomkamp sounds like a good choice to us, mind.

The script for the project is in place, and reportedly has been since earlier this year. So it's down to Paramount now to find a director with a love for the source material, who can maximise the film's budget, and who wants to make the film. We'll keep you posted...

Pajiba