Wait...60,000 'Leagues Under the Sea'?

Why this, why now? Even though Disney is remaking its 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, with reports bleeding out this weekend that David Fincher will direct, it's not the studio's property. Because it was written and published before the 1920s, it's fair game according to copyright law, and anyone who wants to make 20,000 Leagues (or Shakespeare or The Wizard of Oz or even most of Sherlock Holmes' catalog) is free to do it. It's public domain. But why are the rival productions of the same story right now? It happened with Sherlock, it's happening with Three Musketeers, but I'm still not convinced the Sacha Baron Cohen-Will Ferrell comedy collaboration will ever happen, and since Saturday - Saturday, mind you - two other covers of 20,000 Leagues have bubbled to the surface, and they're not small potatoes, either. Dark Horizons has culled information from a couple sources, and it appears David Fincher will face competition from Sam Raimi, who's on the hook to produce a version of the story written by Craig Titley that's supposed to be very faithful to the source material, as well as a futuristic take on the subject produced by Tony and Ridley Scott over at Fox, with Timur Bekmambetov looking to direct. Now, when I say these projects have "bubbled to the surface" since Saturday, that doesn't mean Ridley Scott read the blogs in the past 48 hours, called Fox and Timur, and got to work. Both the Raimi and the Scott Free variations have been in the works, but a lot less publicly than Disney's movie. Remember, McG was going to direct that, was going to cast Will Smith as Captain Nemo (or so he said), and then Disney gave him the finger and effectively canceled the project. It didn't stay down for the count very long, though, and Fincher - who reportedly was interested in the Raimi-produced film at one point. Getting back to the original question: Why this, why now? Well, I can answer the second question more easily than the first. Even though 2009 was a record year for box office grosses, that doesn't mean it was the most profitable year in movie history, and there's a big difference, especially to the studios. Disney, for example, is trimming a lot of fat, aiming for big budget blockbusters or very small family movies that are easily converted to gold mines. The company doesn't want $40 - $80 million movies now because after the advertising, there's just not enough room in the marketplace for all the movies to be successful. One way to cut costs is to not pay for story rights. Conveniently, a lot of titles that can be found in the public domain are classics, books that were written to actually stand the test of time. Imagine that. So, rather than pay Nicholas Sparks his fee or give an author producing credit that takes a percentage out of the profit margin, the studios are going back to excellent books, seeing where they can a contemporary beat in the material, and get it for free. Of course, Universal did this with Robin Hood, but encountered so many delays that the movie turned out to be way more expensive than anyone involved would have hoped. But it's a practical business model because rather than listening to the cries of "why aren't there more original stories in Hollywood," the studios are hoping to build franchises out of ready-made products people already know. It may not be the most creative way to do it, but it's smart. Having said that, I can't see three versions of the same story standing up, even if there are significant changes to a couple of them. No matter what, the three films will covet much of the same audience (although Disney will certainly take a PG approach to appeal to families), so there will still be a lot of squashed toes if these three movies all move forward within a couple years of each other.

Comments

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Why not make a competition out of it? Get the directors together to set some parameters (set a budget, casting restrictions, et cetera...) and make it a public chivalrous rivalry-thing about who can direct the best one, given the same circumstances. I'd pay extra to see that :)

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