20th Century Fox is already set to get into the 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA business with Bryan Singer later this year, but that’s not going to preclude Disney from wading into those waters in the near future themselves.
James Mangold is set to direct CAPTAIN NEMO, a 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA origin story of sorts based on H.G. Wells novel, with Sebastian Gutierrez currently working on the script at this stage of development. Now, when this picture would get made is anyone’s guess as Mangold has the third WOLVERINE movie lined up at Fox first. However, this is definitely something Disney is intent on making, even if slightly down the road, given how much they tried to make something happen with David Fincher handling the material a few years back, only for it to ultimately fall apart.
It would appear that this is a different take on the material than what Singer is doing, so perhaps The Mouse’s picture will come away unscathed… but how many 20,000 LEAGUES-like films does the general public really need and will they support them both, even if there’s a bit of distance between them? The first one out of the gate usually gets the better of that head-to-head, so, while Disney is lining up some pieces for CAPTAIN NEMO to go forward, it’ll be interesting to see if it stays in that direction once Singer’s production starts swimming.