David Lynch was proud of all his projects except this one film

David Lynch revealed one of his biggest career regrets years before his death.

The feted director of Mulholland Drive, Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks died a few days before his 79th birthday, his family announced Thursday, January 16.

Before his death, he revealed on his YouTube channel in June 2020 that despite the cult status of his 1984 film, Duneit was the project he is least proud of.

Lynch directed the 1984 adaptation of Dunebased on Frank Herbert’s 1965 sci-fi novel, starring Kyle MacLachlan, Virginia Madsen, Patrick Stewart, Linda Hunt and José Ferrer.

“I’m kind of proud of everything except Dune“, he admitted in the video titled “Do you have a question for David? Part 1.”

“I’ve loved working in different mediums so much,” Lynch continued. “It’s not about pride, it’s more like the joy of doing, the enjoyment of the work.”

The Eraser head director added, “I’ve just enjoyed working in all these different mediums, and I feel again, really lucky, to have been able to enjoy these things and to be able to live.”

Lynch had previously spoken about his dissatisfaction with the sci-fi film. Two months before he admitted that he was not proud of the feature, he said The Hollywood Reporter that “it was a heartache” for him.

He also revealed that he had “zero interest” by watching Denis Villeneuve’s latest adaptations, starring Timothée Chalamet, Oscar Isaac, Jason Momoa, Josh Brolin and Zendaya.

“It was a failure and I didn’t have final cut,” he explained to the magazine in April 2020. “I’ve told this story a billion times. It wasn’t the movie I wanted to make. I really like certain parts of it – but it was a total failure for me.”

In addition, the year before, in July 2019, during a virtual Q&A, he said that the film was “huge, gigantic sadness in my life.”

“Total creative control, I didn’t have that,” he explained, adding, “The film is not the film I would have made if I had had the final control. It’s a bit of a sadness.”

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Still, the cast is off Dune recalled Lynch fondly, honoring him with tributes following the news of his death.

“Forty-two years ago, for reasons beyond my comprehension, David Lynch plucked me from obscurity to star in his first and last big-budget film. He clearly saw something in me that even I didn’t recognize. I owe all my career, and life really, to his vision,” MacLachlan, 65, wrote on Instagram.

Alicia Witt, a child star from Dune, wrote that Lynch “showed me who I was. on a core level. an actor. a channeler. how would I have ever known such things existed as a possibility if not for him?”

The Long legs actress, 49, added, “from the first moment he directed me in Jane Jenkins’ casting office in NYC, to my audition for Dune, I felt like I was being seen for the first time. I found a power inside my soul like a seed unrolling. I remember the feeling, the communication between us, that I would follow him everywhere in my mind, and he would lead me not to *play* alias, but to become alias.”