'Dune' director Denis Villeneuve says it's a 'miracle' he survived box office flop 'Blade Runner 2049'

• Villeneuve still can't believe he survived "Blade Runner 2049."
• "It was sacrilegious what I did," Villeneuve admits. "I was told, 'You don't do that.'"

It turns out even "Blade Runner 2049" director Denis Villeneuve knew it was a mistake to make "Blade Runner 2049."

Despite its mind-blowing photography by cinematographer Roger Deakins (which earned him his long-awaited first Oscar), the sequel to Ridley Scott's 1982 sci-fi noir classic "Blade Runner" starring Harrison Ford was one nobody asked for and it flopped at the box office, not even crossing $100 million domestically. The movie is said to have cost its production company Alcon Entertainment at least $80 million, IndieWire reported.

Looking back at it now, Villeneuve is just happy he's still making movies.

"The miracle for me about 'Blade Runner 2049' is the following: I'm still making movies and you're still talking to me," Villeneuve recently said on the podcast "Happy Sad Confused." "I put myself into massive artistic danger. That was walking, as Christopher Nolan said to me once…walking on sacred territory."

In Villeneuve's version, Ryan Gosling is a Blade Runner years after Ford's Rick Dechard hit the scene. He also is on the hunt for fugitive replicants, and needs to track down Deckard to help him.

"It was sacrilegious what I did," Villeneuve said of attempting a sequel. "I was told, 'You don't do that.' Just the fact that I'm still here making movies, for me … at least I wasn't banned from the filmmaker community. It was a dangerous game."

While "2049" failed to find an audience in the public, it was a hit with critics gaining a slew of five-star reviews and an overall Rotten Tomatoes critic score of 88%.

However, Villeneuve hasn't gone on to play things safe. He's now about to release his version of "Dune." The beloved Frank Herbert novel was previously adapted by David Lynch in 1984 to very mixed reviews. Some believe it's an unmakable movie. Villeneuve says this effort is different from taking on "Blade Runner."

"With 'Blade Runner' I had to be respectful of Ridley Scott's masterpiece," he said. "It was more an act of love. Here it's totally different. I'm dealing with the pressure of the dreams I had as a teenager. I was a big dreamer. I dreamed big when I was younger. That teenager in me is totalitarian and I had to please those dreams. That was the biggest challenge."

"Dune" hits theaters and HBO Max on October 22.