David Fincher Opens Up About Why His 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA Remake Sank at Disney

Director David Fincher is known for his intricate and detailed storytelling ability and filmmaking skills. From Fight Club, Zodiac, and The Social Network, his films have redefined genres and pushed boundaries.

So, when I first heard he was set to direct a remake of Disney’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, I was beyond excited. Fincher seemed like the perfect choice to take Jules Verne’s classic novel to bold new depths.

Unfortunately, that vision never saw the light of day, and Fincher recently shed light on why the project unraveled.

In an interview with Letterboxd, Fincher detailed the creative clashes with Disney that ultimately sank the project. “I really wanted to do Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea because what we had in mind was really kind of gross and cool and wet and steampunk and all that.”

But the ambitious, dark tone he envisioned didn’t align with Disney’s priorities. He said: “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.’”

For Fincher, the heart of Verne’s novel lies in its anti-imperialist themes and Captain Nemo’s compelling backstory.

He said: “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.”

Disney’s response? “Yeah, yeah, fine. As long as there’s a lot less of that in it.” So, it became clear that Disney wasn’t willing to embrace the vision Fincher was excited about. He said: “You can’t make people be excited about the risks that you’re excited about.”

This wasn’t the first time a remake of Disney’s 1954 classic faced troubled waters. Before Fincher, director McG was attached in 2009, considering stars like Will Smith and Sam Worthington for the role of Captain Nemo.

When McG’s version fell apart, Fincher came aboard in 2010, collaborating with writer Scott Z. Burns. But casting setbacks and creative differences with Disney became an impossible hurdle to overcome. By 2013, Fincher left the project, moving on to direct Gone Girl instead.

Reflecting on his decision to walk away, Fincher said: “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 eventually did find a way to explore his nautical storytelling, saying: “I got to do ‘Bad Travelling’ on Netflix, and that scratched that itch.” He’s referring to his Love, Death & Robots episode. “I was fine just doing that.”

Since Fincher’s departure, the journey to bring 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea back to the screen has continued to be a rough road. James Mangold briefly took over in 2016, planning a film called Captain Nemo, but left to direct Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.

Most recently, the story was adapted as a series titled Nautilus, which focused on Nemo’s origins. Though initially greenlit by Disney+, it was dropped when they implemented cost-cutting measures.

Fincher's frequent collaborator Andrew Kevin Walker previously talked about the project saying the movie "was very close to getting made. That would have been the coolest Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea you could imagine. It was going to be a movie where parents would be as blown away as the kids."

Fincher previously talked about siad of the projectL “Dude, it was [frick]ing cool. It was smart and crazy entertaining, with the Nautilus crew fighting every kind of gigantic Ray Harryhausen thing. But it also had this riptide to it.

“We were doing Osama bin Nemo, a Middle Eastern prince from a wealthy family who has decided that white imperialism is evil and should be resisted. The notion was to put kids in a place where they’d say, 'I agree with everything he espouses. I take issue with his means—or his ends.'

“I really wanted to do it, but in the end I didn’t have the stomach lining for it. A lot of people flourish at Hollywood studios because they’re fear-based. I have a hard time relating to that, because I feel our biggest responsibility is to give the audience something they haven’t seen."

It’s disappointing that Fincher never got to make this movie.