'Se7en' Writer Andrew Kevin Walker To Reteam With David Fincher Penning '20,000 Leagues Under The Sea'

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by Kevin Jagernauth
November 17, 2011 11:03 PM
6 Comments

By the time we got to the scene where Brad Pitt was agonizing over what was in the box, it was clear that writer Andrew Kevin Walker and director David Fincher had created something powerful in "Se7en." The duo haven't worked on a project together since, but not for a lack of trying. A couple of years ago they tried to get an adaptation of Max Erlich's "The Reincarnation Of Peter Proud" off the ground. Like a handful of other Fincher projects over the years, it fell to the wayside. Now, the helmer has enlisted his old friend for what may be his biggest movie yet.

Deadline reports that Walker will take a pen to Disney's "20,000 Leagues Under The Sea" that has Fincher attached to direct. The project will be a mammoth undertaking, prepping to be shot in 3D with Fincher boasting over the summer it would be up to 70% CG, with a lot of motion capture work. A favorite of Fincher's best bud Steven Soderbergh, Scott Z. Burns ("Contagion,""The Informant!") was the latest writer to take a stab at the script in a project that has seen a few people pass through including Randall Wallace and Michael Chabon. But will this be next for Fincher? Maybe, maybe not. "I think that there’s a lot of movies that could be my next film," he said in August. Clearly, the script is not quite where he needs it just yet.

And certainly, Fincher has plenty of options right now. Angelina Jolie, Scott Rudin and Sony want him for "Cleopatra" and if "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" is the success it should be, "The Girl Who Played With Fire" will certainly be knocking on his door. But as far as big budget, mainstream movies go, we never thought we'd see Walker and Disney in the same sentence or even the same story, so it's an intriguing development. But where this leads, we'll have to wait and see.

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6 Comments

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tristan eldritch | November 18, 2011 11:25 AMReply

Not a popular view, but I think Fincher is an immense talent who very, very rarely gets the right material. He excercises total technical control over how he makes his movies, but he never seems to have the same degree of control over the type of films he gets to make, and with Cleopatra and and a Disney remake on the horizan, it seems like he's veering increasingly in the direction of a journeyman, albeit one who will always be interesting to watch. Zodiac is his only masterpiece, in my humble and soon to be shot down opinion.
gonad | November 18, 2011 7:45 AMReply

No film needs more than two writers.
gonad | November 18, 2011 12:19 PM

Fair enough.
Scott Nye | November 18, 2011 11:52 AM

This is such a load. In the studio era, screenplays would regularly go through several writers before coming out with a finished product, and even in the rare instance when two writers could be said to be primarily responsible for the material, the director usually had a hand in shaping it as well. Howard Hawks, for instance, never took a screenplay credit, but nearly always co-wrote his films. Hell, The Big Sleep had three credited screenwriters (on an adaptation of a novel, no less) without even getting into Hawks' involvement, and that's one of the best screenplays ever written.

Casablanca had at least FOUR screenwriters pitching in, often writing pages for the next day's shoot, and that could legitimately be called the finest screenplay ever.

A great screenplay can come from any process.
Mike | November 18, 2011 12:15 AMReply

Even with Burns signing up I still thought this was a horrid idea, AKW makes it more intriguing. However, I really hope he does the whole Millenium trilogy, the later films in the Swedish series suffered a lot from having different filmmakers (on top of lower budgets and weaker source material for the middle installment).
Brian | November 17, 2011 11:23 PMReply

Andy Kevin Walker did uncredited rewrites on "The Game" and "Fight Club." Fincher complains on the "Fight Club" commentary about Walker not getting credit and his issues with the WGA. So they have the three detectives listed in the credits as "Andrew," "Kevin," and "Walker."