Two studios move on 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA; which will sink and which will swim?
Two studios move on 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA; which will sink and which will swim?
May 17
I remember reading 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea back in high school. It was about as interesting as watching paint dry, but I was a teenager back then, so what did I know? I’ve seen some of that old Disney movie too, and that was pretty stodgy as well. So what we need is a 21st century adaptaion, right? Right?
Both David Fincher (he of Seven and Fight Club; most recently Benjamin Button) with Disney, and Timur Bekmambetov (Wanted) with 20th Century Fox are gearing up to direct their own version of Jules Verne’s undying contribution to the proto sci-fi genre he helped create; Disney’s likely to go with a more family-friendly, Star Wars-ish approach, and Fox is likely to adopt a more showboaty, tentpole-ish style. Probably in 3D.
Take this with a grain of salt, though. Last I heard, Bekmambetov was set to do a comic-book styled take on Herman Melville’s classic Moby-Dick, which physically hurt my brain when I read about it. David Fincher can do whatever the hell he likes after The Social Network — he is David Fincher, after all — but sci-fi was not the direction I would’ve guessed he’d choose, but whatever.
If one of these projects moves ahead quicker than the other, expect the slower one to be scrapped. Leagues is in the public domain now, which explains why everyone’s suddenly clamouring to adapt it, but There Can Only Be One (hopefully).
