Director David Fincher on board 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea remake at Disney!

Last Updated on July 23, 2021

Big news hit the internet over the weekend, as The Hollywood Reporter announced that David Fincher, the brilliant director behind such films as SE7EN, ALIEN 3, THE GAME, and FIGHT CLUB, is developing a remake, retake, redo, reshuffle, or what-have-you, of Disney’s 1954 classic 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA!

If you want to get technical about it, it’s simply another adaptation of Jules Vernes’s tale of underwater adventures with Captain Nemo and the crew of the Nautilus, including a little run-in with a giant ship-eating squid, first originally published in 1869, and currently a part of the public domain. Fincher is developing the project with BOURNE ULTIMATUM writer Scott Z. Burns.

This is just weeks after the crumbling of McG’s pitch of LEAGUES, which was headed for the big screen with a $150M price tag on it. For whatever reason, McG’s project fell apart, and Fincher was able to pitch his take for the new movie.

So can we expect another SE7EN or FIGHT CLUB in terms of tone and style, another dip into Fincher’s ability to go dark and still be stylish (ZODIAC)? This is where the news get disappointing. Fincher wanted to do something different for him, something that wasn’t R rated, wasn’t dark in tone, and wasn’t heavy into drama. Hence why this will be a Disney picture. Ironically, McG’s version (the verison that fell apart) was set to be a darker take on the origins of Nemo. Now that he’s out and Fincher’s in, Disney is getting the light-hearted adventure it was wanting all along. I’m bummed that it won’t have the usual Fincher feel to it, but it’ll be interesting to see if he can do a family adventure movie. There are stranger things that have happened…

Burns is currently hard at work on the script, which will apparently be dazzling in every definition of the word. Fincher is wrapping up THE SOCIAL NETWORK for Sony, and will likely have another project to direct before jumping into LEAGUES.