20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA lives on as a movie prospect once again. Only this time, it doesn’t appear to have David Fincher or Timur Bekmambetov‘s names attached to make it happen. Now Bryan Singer is attempting to adapt the world of Jules Verne for the big screen.
Singer took to his social media to announce that 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA will be his next project, once all his duties on X-MEN: APOCALYPSE have come to a close. Showing off the cover of the screenplay, the story seems to have come from Singer, Rick Sordelet and Dan Studney, with the latter two penning the script.
After some digging, Singer’s film is currently floating around all by itself, not set up at any particular studio as of right now, although that could change very quickly. A pair of competing 20,000 LEAGUES projects had been in development at both Disney (Fincher’s) and Fox (Bekmambetov), with both stalling out and essentiall crumbling as they failed to get close enough to getting made. The guess would be that Singer’s film would most likely end up at Fox, given his relationship with them in the past built on the success of the X-MEN franchise, but a lot of that will come down to budget – what Singer thinks he can make this for and whether the studio sees it as a worthwhile investment that they have the potential to make money on.
As for how this affects those X-MEN movies, Singer made it a point in his announcement to state that he would not be abandoning the X-MEN Universe, and that he was excited about APOCALYPSE and beyond. With such a careful choice of words, I wouldn’t count Singer out of helming whatever the next X-MEN flick is going to be post-APOCALYPSE, once he has some time to go off and sow his wild oats with 20,000 LEAGUES.
X-MEN: APOCALYPSE is the next Bryan Singer film we’re set to see in theaters when it shows up on May 27, 2016.