David Fincher’s ‘20,000 Leagues’ Is Dead In the Water But His ‘Dragon Tattoo’ Sequel Is Still On Fire
No, I will not be apologizing for that title.
David Fincher is having a pretty newsworthy week thanks to the recent confirmation that his follow-up to 2011’s The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo will be another literary thriller adaptation. He’s heading into pre-production on Gone Girl based on Gillian Flynn’s bestseller with star Ben Affleck and an as-yet unnamed female lead, but while that’s exciting news it leaves a couple questions hanging limply in the air.
Will we still see the Dragon Tattoo sequel, The Girl Who Played With Fire hit screens in the near future? And for the love of god can we finally sink the idea of Fincher wasting his time on a 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea remake once and for all?
Happily, the answer to both questions appears to be yes.
Per The Playlist, Sony is still moving forward with The Girl Who Played With Fire and has even hired Seven scribe Andrew Kevin Walker to rewrite the script. Walker also worked on the Leagues reboot, so maybe that’s not the best of signs, but the fact that they’re assigning a name screenwriter to a new rewrite bodes well in general (especially after already paying Steve Zaillian a hefty sum for his stab at the script). There’s still no confirmation as to Fincher’s interest or involvement in the director’s chair, but per THR that appears to no longer be an option. Depending on who you ask it’s either Sony’s desire to bring down the budget from the first film (estimated around $90 million) or the complications arising from trying to schedule Fincher around Gone Girl and star Daniel Craig around his next James Bond outing that has led to the very real possibility of a different director stepping into the fire. FIncher would stay on as an executive producer though.
As for 20,000 Leagues, did anyone really want to see this movie anyway? More to the point, did anyone want to see Fincher get bogged down in such an endeavor? Hopefully not as it appears the director moved on officially from the project several months ago. If they’re smart Disney will take the hint and let the project die permanently as to avoid another “financial disappointment” like this year’s The Lone Ranger, last year’s John Carter… and next year’s The Jungle Book?
Related Topics: Daniel Craig, David Fincher
