In 1981, the nine-year film rights were set to expire. De Laurentiis renegotiated the rights from the author, adding to them the rights to the "Dune" sequels (written and unwritten). After seeing "The Elephant Man", producer Raffaella De Laurentiis decided that David Lynch should direct the movie. Around that time, Lynch received several other directing offers, including "Return of the Jedi". He agreed to direct "Dune" and write the screenplay, though he had not read the book, known the story, or even been interested in science fiction. Lynch worked on the script for six months with Eric Bergren and Christopher De Vore. The team yielded two drafts of the script before they split over creative differences. Lynch subsequently worked on five more drafts.