The Four-Decade Fight To Bring the Most Visionary Sci-Fi Epic to the Screen

The Big Picture

• Surrealist cinema, like that of Alejandro Jodorowsky, challenges traditional storytelling norms.
• Jodorowsky’s unrealized project to adapt
  Dune
  influenced his later graphic novel series,
  The Incal
  .
• The Incal
  , despite its long development, has influenced many sci-fi classics, but remains unadapted.

Surrealist cinema occupies a unique place in film culture that is outside of any traditional standards of storytelling. The style is as old as the classic silent films of Georges Méliès, and is responsible for some of the most striking imagery in the history of the medium. Despite their lasting influence, surrealist cinema has never had significant mainstream appeal. Nonetheless, the subgenre has spawned many prominent artists, including the brilliant Chilean filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky. Ever since his breakout acid Western El Topo earned a cult fanbase in the 1970s, Jodorowsky has made bold and disturbing films that combine rich mythology with thought-provoking philosophy.

Despite the singular achievements within his filmography, Jodorowsky is perhaps best known for the most ambitious film that he ever made. The surrealist auteur once launched an ambitious endeavor to adapt Frank Herbert’s science fiction novel Dune, spending years of his life dedicated to the film’s pre-production and conceptual design. Jodorowsky’s enthusiasm got the better of him, and his version of Dune was promptly canceled before David Lynch took a stab at the famously dense material. While he never got to enter Herbert’s elaborate world, Jodorowsky did create his own science fiction odyssey with the graphic novel The Incal.

What Is Alejandro Jodorowsky’s ‘The Incal’ About?

First released as a serialized adventure in the French science fiction magazine Métal Hurlant, The Incal is a science fiction graphic novel that serves as the first entry in Jodorowksy’s “Metabarons Universe,” which includes all the graphic novels that he wrote. The stories feature stunning artwork by the highly influential conceptual artist Jean Giraud, whose designs found their way into many of the best science fiction films of all-time, including Tron, The Abyss, and Alien. Bolstered by Jodorowsky’s growing popularity thanks to the success of his films The Holy Mountain and Tusk within arthouse cinemas, The Incal was later collected as six hardcover novels that synthesized the stories. The release of the prequel series, Before the Incal, in the early 21st century inspired the publishing house Les Humanoïdes Associés to make the series more widely available in the United States.

Although the series featured an original story, The Incal was inspired by Jodorowsky’s failed ideas for his Dune movie. The director said that he dreamed that he “was flying in intergalactic space,” and remained committed to creating a space opera film that allowed him to pursue these fantasies. On a narrative level, The Incal bears a lot in common with Dune. The series takes place in a dystopian future where mankind has spread its reach into an intergalactic empire. Initial stories focused on the division of the fictional universe between the corrupt alien species known as “The Bergs,” the ruthless technological guild known as the Church of Industrial Saints, and the heroic rebels of Amok.

Similar to Dune, The Incal subverts expectations of the hero’s journey by focusing on a non-traditional protagonist. The Incal’s lead character is the private investigator John Difool, who reluctantly finds himself at the center of the intergalactic civil war after nearly being killed by masked villains in a sprawling dystopian metroplex. Difool shares many qualities with the classic anti-heroes of noir cinema; he has a cynical perception of humanity, breaks into frequent violent outbursts, and suffers from gripping feelings of self-doubt. Similar to Paul Atreides, Difool’s acceptance of his destiny leads him down a darker path as he reckons with the challenges of becoming a messianic figure.

Why ‘The Incal’ Film Adaptation Is Stuck in Development Hell

While Jodorowsky’s adaptation of Dune is often listed as one of the greatest films never made, The Incal has been stuck in a similar state of development hell for over four decades. Given the ever-expanding nature of Jodorowsky’s fictional universe in subsequent continuations, the unwieldy world-building presents an ambitious task for any filmmakers interested in the source material. The Canadian animation director Pascal Blais once created a short film promoting his vision for what an adaptation would look like in the 1980s. While updated versions of the footage were subsequently released throughout the 2010s, the project never moved past its development stage.

Writer/director Nicholas Winding Refn was rumored to be involved in an adaptation of The Incal in the early 2010s after his controversial crime thriller Only God Forgives split audiences down the middle. Refn’s sensibilities would seemingly line up with Jodorowsky’s, as they both combine head-spinning visual motifs with shocking instances of violence and dark comedy. Refn is a professed fan of Jodorowsky’s, and discussed their friendship in the 2013 documentary Jodorowsky’s Dune. Unfortunately, Refn’s interest never led to an official announcement or development deal.

The most recent update about the project’s status came in 2021 when Taika Waititi was announced as the next director working on an adaptation of The Incal. Waititi was reportedly working on a new script alongside Jemaine Clement, a loyal collaborator who has appeared in many of his projects. However, updates on the film have been scarce; given the plethora of projects Waititi has in development, it’s unclear whether The Incal is still a priority.

‘The Incal’ Has Influenced Science Fiction Classics

Although it is unfortunate that it has never received a proper adaptation, The Incal has inspired many brilliant science fiction films. The combination of futuristic technology with the moody atmosphere of a classic neo-noir has made its way into such all-time classics as Blade Runner, The Matrix, Akira, The Fifth Element, and Dark City. (Though it is worth mentioning that Jodorowsy wound up suing Luc Besson over The Fifth Element‘s similarities to The Incal.) The sprawling cityscape that serves as the backdrop for political chaos can even be compared to role that the planet Coruscant occupies in the Star Wars prequel trilogy.

When considering the significant political, religious, and mystical themes that it tackles, a proper adaptation of The Incal may never see the light of day. It’s hardly the first work of fiction to be deemed “unadaptable,” but it nonetheless would require significant investment from any studio or filmmaker interested in bringing the story to the screen. Regardless of what happens to The Incal, it remains a cornerstone of Jodorowsky’s legacy that will most certainly influence generations of storytellers.

Jodorowsky’s Dune is available to stream on Max in the U.S.

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