By Jonathan Klotz
| Published
When I went to Disney World as a kid, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea was my favorite ride, and for 20 minutes, which is an eternity compared to modern park rides, I got to live my childhood dream of sailing with Captain Nemo on board the Nautilus. The ride was shut down in 1994 and replaced by The Little Mermaid. It’s now 30 years later, and Jules Verne’s classic novel still has no presence in Disney parks and, worse, has yet to receive a modern movie adaptation despite being the novel that helped launch the entire sci-fi genre.
The Book That Popularized Sci-Fi
Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea was a massive success upon its release in 1869 when it was first serialized, and then again in 1871, when an illustrated version hit bookstores worldwide. As with most classic works of science fiction, Verne took a futurist perspective on submarines when coming up with the Nautilus, Captain Nemo’s advanced submarine that he used to terrorize shipping lanes. Yet, considering Nemo’s motivations as a pure man of science and a lover of nature, Verne unintentionally created the first eco-terrorist.
On the surface, the novel is a sci-fi adventure, but dig a little deeper, and there are references to the political turmoil of the time, the impact of the Industrial Revolution, and how the natural world is becoming forever tarnished. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea has a lot going on under the surface, but instead of making it hard to adapt, it would help make it easy and relevant even today, nearly 150 years after it was first published. That makes it even more astonishing that the last time anyone adapted the novel into a movie was 70 years ago.
The Last Major Movie Adaptation
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, released in 1954 by Walt Disney, starred Kirk Douglas as harpooner Ned Land, and one of Hollywood’s classic leading men, George Mason, ass Captain Nemo, was a smash hit, and while box office numbers for back then are hard to come by, estimates put it around $8 million earned in four years, or $91 million if adjusted for inflation. That puts it at almost double of Joker 2’s domestic box office total.
Mixing parts of The Mysterious Island, the underappreciated sequel novel, with the original novel, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, the film is still a faithful, for 1954’s sensibilities at least, adaptation of the groundbreaking story. Nemo’s rough, nihilistic edges are softened somewhat, but Mason does a fantastic job of the complex character who is both a hero and a villain, depending on who you ask. \
Nautilus Means Well But Falls Short
Despite the lack of a modern movie adaptation, which makes no sense given the success of the 1954 film, the BBC adapted 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea for the new series Nautilus, which is well-intentioned and wonderfully acted but misses the point. The modern series is an origin story for Nemo and the iconic sub, altering his book origins as a fallen Indian prince to make him a slave under the employ of the East India Company, the go-to villain for 19th-century naval adventures.
Instead of being a man of science who considers himself above the turmoil of the world of man, Nemo, played by Star Trek: Discovery’s Shazad Latif, in Nautilus starts out on a quest for revenge against the British corporation, which mostly works, but again, it’s not really Nemo. He’s a haunted and broken man, but as a huge fan of the 1954 film and the original novel, there’s something missing, as it is a prequel, that could be on purpose, and at least someone is trying to tell this story today, even if it deserves a bigger stage.
We Need An IMAX Spectacle
Imagine a blockbuster 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea playing on an IMAX screen. All of the gorgeous underwater vistas of the Pacific combined with the sheer terror of the deep water giant squid, storms on the surface, and tropical islands glistening in the ocean, it’s a story that should be told in the biggest format possible. We deserve a new version of Jules Verne’s groundbreaking story that finally does justice to his original vision.
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