DVDizzy Forum

RIPJoeRanft wrote:David Fincher is one of the best directors in Hollywood, and Disney was lucky to be able to secure him for this project. I'm excited for it, mostly because of that hire. He will make this movie great.

Hogi Bear wrote:And they have to give Kirk Douglas a cameo (at least), with maybe Michael Douglas (if he's up to it) for fun. I just reckon it would be fun to see father and son in a scene together, then next thing you'll have the entire family in there joking though (maybe). But to see Kirk Douglas in there would be cool.

I'll have to pull the DVD out and watch it soon. Actually, come to think of it, I don't think I've ever watched the copy I've got and I've had it for probably two years. Nothing new, I've probably got ten or so other DVDs that I've still been meaning to watch and probably mostly Disney (live action).

jediliz wrote:if Depp is Nemo, then I say NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Do NOT ruin a classic book with Johnny Depp!

At an Actors Studio Q&A at the Swedish Film Institute, David Fincher was asked by /Film reader Viktor J about his possible interest in doing a motion-capture or performance-capture film. The director said:

"I would love to to something like that. I would love to do something probably more like Avatar than Tintin. I like the idea of something that is a little more… complicated. (chuckles) I love the idea of a ‘cartoon’, but I would like it to be sort of very, very dense. And, in fact, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea will be probably 70% CG. [...] I love motion capture and think it’s only in its infancy, and eventually there won’t be a difference between motion capture and acting. because that’s all motion capture is, is being able to capture acting."

estefan wrote:Keep in mind that David Fincher previously used motion-capture to excellent effect in Benjamin Button, so he is one of those filmmakers who knows how to use it well.

estefan wrote:Keep in mind that David Fincher previously used motion-capture to excellent effect in Benjamin Button, so he is one of those filmmakers who knows how to use it well.

Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea is one of those books that will be adapted and re-adapted until the end of time, both on television and in film. Most recently it was announced that director David Fincher and writer Scott Z. Burns would be working on a new version of the story, but with the Fincher working on Stieg Larsson’s The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and Burns heading around the world for the Steven Soderbergh-directed Contagion, we haven’t heard too much about the project’s status. Fortunately, I was given the opportunity to sit down with Burns earlier today and he provided an update on the project’s status.

While discussing his upcoming scripts, the screenwriter told me that the movie is on a similar timetable to The Man From U.N.C.L.E., which he hopes will start shooting in the spring, but there's still a lot of pre-production work that needs to be done. "Because of the amount of pre-vis work that David would have to do we wouldn’t probably start shooting for a little while later and David is so buried in Dragon Tattoo, that’s where his focus is," Burns said. "For now I’ve done writing for both of them [The Man From U.N.C.L.E. and 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea]. They’re sort of waiting to get cast and move forward."

Burns also confirmed that the scale of the project is "really big," but don't expect the movie to be the exact same story from Verne's novel. Saying that there's "very little" that goes directly from the page to the screen, he said that his job "isn’t to turn a book into a movie, it’s to be inspired by the book and then go write a movie." The inspiration that Burns took largely come from the three main characters: Captain Nemo, French marine biologist Professor Pierre Aronnax, and master harpoonist Ned Land. "David and I had a really cool idea for the relationship between Nemo, and Aronnax and Land," Burns said. "That’s really what we kind of got into. But I think it’s very, very true to the spirit of the book."

“Most of your work thus far has been adaptations – The Informant!, PU-239, the upcoming 20000 Leagues Under the Sea – vs. Contagion, to which there is no pre-existing material. What differences do you find between the two?”

Burns offers that the only difference between the two is that when adapting material, you already have the original building block for the script in place whereas for an original script, you have to create that first seed yourself.

On the adaptation process in general, he states fidelity to the source material is the furthest thing on his mind. “When adapting, I’m more inspired by the material than interested in creating a filmed version of the book.” As an example, Burns refers to 20000 Leagues – saying that his version doesn’t have any sequences from the novel but that the general “spirit of Verne remains in tact.” He likens it to his work on The Informant!, the added voiceovers of the film bearing no relation to the novel on which it’s based.