Fight Club director in talks with Disney to tackle his first mass-audience blockbuster since Alien 3
Fight Club and Benjamin Button director David Fincher is in final negotiations with Disney to direct a remake of 20,ooo Leagues Under The Sea .
The new adaptation of the Jules Verne classic had been under development with Terminator Salvation ’s McG at the helm, but the project stalled some months back. According to The Hollywood Reporter , Fincher actually approached new Disney production head Sean Bailey just after he’d started the job expressing interest in directing a mass audience appeal blockbuster since Alien 3 (well, it was supposed to be a blockbuster…*). 20,ooo Leagues seemed to fit the bill.
The Hollywood Reporter also claims that The Bourne Ultimatum and Contagion scribe Scott Z Burns is on board as scriptwriter, to create a film described as being in the vein of Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back .
Intriguingly, the report also points out the irony in the fact that Disney dropped the McG version over concerns that it was too dark, and now they've got the director of Se7en and Zodiac on board!
* This is not a qualitative statement, just an objective one… personally on SFX we still reckon Alien 3 is a work of flawed genius, just not very multiplex-friendly.
