Justin Marks To Rewrite McG's Captain Nemo

Justin Marks has been hired by Disney to rewrite 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea: Captain Nemo, which McG is attached to direct. Marks is well known in Hollywood as a screenwriter who gets the geek niche, and has turned in drafts for Masters of the Universe, Super Max (The Green Arrow jailbreak movie), Voltron, Hack/Slash and Street Fighter. Disney hopes to make the film this year, and McG is slotting it as his next project, before he moves on to a fifth Terminator film. McG supposedly wants Will Smith to play Captain Nemo.20,000 Leagues Under the Sea: Captain Nemo was scripted by Bill Marsilli (Deja Vu) and tells the origin story of Nemo and his warship, the Nautilus. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea was the first live action film in Walt Disney history, and is considered by many to be the most mature film they have ever produced. Based on the Jules Verne novel of the same name, the 1954 film told the story of a ship sent to investigate a wave of mysterious sinkings encounters the advanced submarine, the Nautilus, commanded by Captain Nemo.

The film is best remembered for the giant-squid battle and for the Nautilus itself. It won two Academy Awards in 1955 for Best Effects and Set Decoration, and was also nominated for Best Film Editing. By 1955, Disney Studios did not have enough space to be able to keep the large sets used during production of the film so instead of destroying them, they became part of a walk-through attraction in the Tomorrowland area of the newly opened Disneyland park in California, where it remained until 1966. The Submarine Voyage was another popular attraction based on the film took visitors on an underwater adventure.

source: Variety