About two months ago, an intriguing rumor surfaced: Paramount is seeking the rights to Frank Herbert’s Dune in order to set up Peter Berg (”The Kingdom”) as a potential franchise director. Well forget rumor — it’s fact. Berg says about the project to MTV that he directing the new Dune franchise is a “done deal”, and that they would be in production now if not for the writer’s strike.

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Berg says that while there’s no script yet, they have a list of writers they plan to go out to once the strike settles. The helmer called himself “a huge fan of the book” and when asked about the scale of the film, he simply replied, “big big big.”

As any fan of the Frank Herbert classic knows, “Dune” received the big screen treatment once before in a divisive David Lynch film. Berg said that while he’s “a big fan of Lynch,” he believes “that interpretation has left the door wide open for a remake.”

But before that, Berg will have to try to resuscitate Tom Cruise’s movie career with the spy thriller “Edwin A. Salt”, in which Cruise will play a CIA agent accused of treason.