David Fincher's '20,000 Leagues Under The Sea: Captain Nemo' Gets Funding From Australia, But Greenlight Still Waiting

nullRight now, David Fincher appears to be at a bit of a crossroads in terms of what he’ll do next. Obviously, “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo” sequels are still sorting out their issues before they can get made, but over the past couple of months, the director has taken good hard looks at both the thriller “Gone Girl” — recently touted as the most likely candidate for his next movie — and the long-developing “20,000 Leagues Under The Sea: Captain Nemo” at Disney for his upcoming projects. And the latter has just received twenty million or so good reasons why it might be his next film.

Deadline reports that the Australian government will essentially be giving Disney $22.5 million (via tax breaks and rebates) to shoot in the country. Now, this isn’t exactly news per se. As far back as six or seven months ago, Fincher was location scouting in Australia and it had been widely expected that Aussie officials were going to make it attractive for Disney to bring their movie to the country — and they have. The key holdup for the picture moving ahead remains the same: casting.

There is no greenlight yet for the simple reason that a leading man still hasn’t been found. Brad Pitt waffled back and forth before eventually passing on the 3D movie, and the candidates that Fincher does want for movie (Channing Tatum is apparently among them) are not available until next year to work on ‘Leagues.’ So we’re essentially still at the same point the project has always been at albeit Australia has made firm their commitment to the production, which will certainly make it easier to get rolling, and perhaps light a fire under Fincher and Disney to push this up on their schedules.

So one small step forward for ‘Leagues.’ We’d wager “Gone Girl” could still come first if Fincher decides to wait for his preferred cast, and in case you’re wondering, he won’t be shooting any season two episodes of “House Of Cards.” But movement continues on ‘Leagues’ as it inches towards production.