By Filmmaker David Fincher continues his blitz of media interviews lately with discussion today of one particular film he was attached to that got away from him – an adaptation of Jules Verne’s “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea”.
The famed 1870 work follows a group of scientists and whalers sent out into the open seas to take down a massive sea creature that’s been attacking ships.
They discover the creature is an advanced technology submarine designed by exiled Indian prince Captain Nemo who is consumed by a hunger for vengeance for his family slaughtered in the Sepoy Rebellion, along with a hatred of imperialism having lived under the rule of the British East India Company.
Disney did a film adaptation of the work in 1954, starring Kirk Douglas and James Mason along with an ABC mini-series with Michael Caine and Patrick Dempsey. Both versions essentially ‘whitewashed’ Nemo, turning him into an Englishman and omitting any of the imperalism elements.
Fincher was to work with Disney and screenwriter Scott Z. Burns on new and more modern versions of the story in the early 2010s, but hit a roadblock after Brad Pitt passed on the role of harpooner Ned Land.
Disney wanted Fincher to cast Chris Hemsworth, but Fincher wanted Channing Tatum. Fincher also had a different take on the story than what Disney wanted – he wanted to emphasis the revenge against imperialism aspects whereas Disney just wanted something exploitable for their divisions. He explains to Indiewire:
“You can’t make people be excited about the risks that you’re excited about. Disney was in a place where they were saying, ‘We need to know that there’s a thing that we know how to exploit snout to tail, and you’re going to have to check these boxes for us.’ And I was like, ‘You’ve read Jules Verne, right?
This is a story about an Indian prince who has real issues with white imperialism, and that’s what we want to do and they were like, ‘Yeah, yeah, fine. As long as there’s a lot less of that in it.’ So you get to a point where you go, ‘Look, I can’t fudge this, and I don’t want you to discover at the premiere what it is that you’ve financed. It doesn’t make any sense because it’s just going to be pulling teeth for the next two years.’ And I don’t want to do that. I mean, life’s too short.’”
Fincher adds his interpretation would’ve been “really kind of gross and cool and wet and steampunk”. He did use some of the ideas and vibe he planned for the film in the sea monster-themed ‘Bad Travelling’ episode of Netflix’s “Love, Death & Robots”.
Hemsworth did end up playing a harpooner a few years later for Ron Howard’s “In the Heart of the Sea”. More accurate versions of Nemo have been seen in 2003’s “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen” and last year’s “Nautilus” TV series which was originally conceived for Disney+ before being sold off to Amazon.
The post Fincher On His Abandoned “20,000 Leagues” appeared first on Dark Horizons.
