David Fincher’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea Collaborator Says the Film Would Upset Parents and Children

David Fincherdiscarded adaptation of Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea it’s one of those huge missed opportunities that I would have loved to see come to fruition. I’ve always believed he would make an incredible film adaptation and now frequent Fincher collaborator Andrew Kevin Walker has offered some insights into the film.

Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, Walker explained that the film was very close to being made and would leave parents and children speechless. He said the film “was very close to being made. It would have been the greatest Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea you could imagine. It would have been a film where parents would have been as amazed as children.”

Fincher previously spoke about his adaptation, saying: “Man, it was [frick]How wonderful. It was smart, crazy entertainment, with the crew of the Nautilus fighting all kinds of giant Ray Harryhausen things. But he also had this tide. We were playing Osama bin Nemo, a Middle Eastern prince from a wealthy family who has decided that white imperialism is evil and must be opposed. The idea was to put kids in a position where they would say, “I agree with everything he espouses.” I disagree with his means…or with his ends.” I really wanted to do it, but in the end I didn’t have the courage to do it. Many people thrive in Hollywood studios because they are fear-based. I have a hard time relating to that, because I feel like our greatest responsibility is to give the audience something they’ve never seen.”

Fincher also worked on the project with the writer Scott Z. Burns and said that the film was “really great” and that the film will not be exactly the same story as Verne’s novel. She added that there is “very little” that goes directly from the page to the screen. She said his job is “not to turn a book into a movie, it’s to be inspired by the book and then write a movie.” The inspiration Burns took largely came from the three main characters: Captain Nemo, the French marine biologist Professor Pierre Aronnax, and the master harpoonist Ned Land. “David and I had a really interesting idea for the relationship between Nemo, Aronnax and Land. That’s really what we ended up with. But I think it’s very, very true to the spirit of the book.”

I would have really loved to see this movie made! It’s a shame that everything fell apart.