A couple years ago, David Fincher (Fight Club, The Social Network) was knee-deep in location scouting for an adaptation of Jules Verne’s seminal science fiction novel, 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea for Disney. After several delays and casting shakedowns, the project failed to materialize and Fincher moved on to adapting Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl instead.
It were those disputes over casting that eventually put the kibosh on the adaptation, according to Fincher. He was recently interviewed by Little White Lies and spoke candidly about the things going on behind the scenes that sunk 20,000 Leagues, saying:
“You get over $200 million — all motion picture companies have corporate culture and corporate anxieties. Once we got past the list of people we could cast as the different characters in the film, once we got past one or two names which made them very comfortable, making a movie at that price, it became this bizarre endeavor to find which three names you could rub together to make platinum.”
Fincher is known to be a particularly hard director to work with, mainly becuase of his dedication to his artistic vision. Sometimes, he gets his way (as seen with Rooney Mara’s casting in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and the controversial ending to Seven), but in this case, the studio won the battle. Disney is a particularly hard studio to work with, so perhaps pairing Fincher with the House of Mouse was doomed from the start.
While David Fincher’s incarnation of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea won’t see the light of day, his adaptation of Gone Girl is quickly approaching. That film stars Ben Affleck, Rosamund Pike, Neil Patrick Harris, Tyler Perry, and Carrie Coon, and hits theaters on October 3.
Originally published September 15, 2014. Updated April 13, 2018.
