With his new action film From Paris with Love about to hit theaters, Pierre Morel – of Taken (2008) fame – will soon be directing an adaptation of Frank Herbert’s sci-fi novel Dune after Hancock (2008) director Peter Berg left the project in fall 2009 to work on naval action movie Battleship, scheduled for release in 2011.

Morel is rumored to have been working on a sequel to his signature hit Taken – still in its early development stages – so news of the Dune remake comes as a bit of a surprise.

Morel will likely drop the script already written by Quantum of Solace (2008) screenwriter Joshua Zetumer for Peter Berg, following Paramount Pictures’ acquisition of the project from Universal.

Dune will be produced by Kevin Misher’s Misher Films and Richard Rubenstein’s New Amsterdam film studios with an expected release date in 2010.

Promoted as being true to the novel, the Dune remake will be an interesting test to see what Morel can do with story that even David Lynch had trouble adapting as into a feature film.

IndieMoviesOnline has more details on this one.