Looks like we will have two different looks at the classic tale of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea as Disney/Fincher are working on one, as well Ridley and Tony Scott will be creating their own.
Not a day after the announcement that Disney and David Fincher will work together on a new film based on Jules Verne’s ‘20,000 Leagues Under the Sea’ there is word that Ridley and Tony Scott are producing their own as well. Under their Scott Free banner they will produce a Travis Beacham [Clash of the Titans] script and are hoping that Russian director Timur Bekmambetov [Wanted, Day Watch and Night Watch] will sign on to helm the flick.
This is hardly the first time when two studios happen to pick up on the same public domain story to adapt to a film.
Aside from pairing films that have similar themes (Ants/Bug’s Life, Armageddon/Deep Impact, Dante’s Peak/Volcano) this comes from a novel that has been released so long ago that the rights fell to public domain, meaning any studio can make a movie about it and not pay royalties to anyone.
This happened when Tom Cruise’s War of the Worlds film was in development and an independent studio was also creating a film based on the novel. And right now there are two studios developing Three Musketeers films.
Now 20,000 Leagues will get two films and we will forever be comparing them as well.
