Fans of Frank Herbert’s Dune series of books have two wonderful pieces of news for their inboxes today.

First up, the Dune movie reboot, which has been kind of expected ever since Legendary Pictures acquired the rights to Frank Herbert’s work in November last year, now has a director attached: Denis Villeneuve.

If you don’t know who that is, Denis Villeneuve is the man who helmed last year’s sci-fi hit, Arrival, and the teeth-dustingly gritty crime thriller, Sicario. Oh, he’s also the bloke directing that film little film called Blade Runner 2049. You may have heard of it.

The news was broken on Twitter by Brian Herbert, son of Frank and a New York Times bestseller writer in his own write. Apparently, according to Herbert Jnr, the ink has dried on the contract.

It's official — Legendary Pictures has signed the very talented Denis Villeneuve to direct the exciting new DUNE series film project.

— Brian Herbert (@DuneAuthor) February 1, 2017

Now for the second bit of good news. If you cast an eye at the above tweet, you’ll notice that it contains the words ‘DUNE series film project’. Far be it from us to extrapolate but that sounds like Herbert’s work is going to receive the Harry Potter/LOTR/Hunger Games treatment, which means multiple films instead of one (well, if it makes out at the box-office).

This is good news indeed because anyone who’s read the Dune books will know that Herbert’s work is pretty epic in scope and his plots’ complexities are near-impossible to cram into a single film.

For proof of this, check out the first film adaptation of Dune, which was directed by David Lynch. While it looked positively swoon-worthy, the narrative went off the rails in the second act (with characters trying to explain parts of the plot through whispered monologues). Oh, and it didn’t rain at the end of the book, either.

There’s no word yet on any prospective cast members. We’ll be keeping an eye on this though. You bet.