Randall Wallace (Braveheart, We Were Soldiers) Hired To Rewrite Captain Nemo

[Diesel]

Braveheart scribe Randall Wallace has been hired to rewrite Disney’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea: Captain Nemo, which is being developed for McG. Not a good sign for the project, which has already had a couple notable writers. Geek screenwriter Justin Marks (Masters of the Universe, Super Max) was hired in February to rewrite Bill Marsilli’s (Deja Vu) original draft. Wallace is squeezing the Nemo “writing gig” in before he goes off to direct the racehorse drama Secretariat in September. Wallace, who was nominated for an Oscar for writing Braveheart, has since been credited with Pearl Harbor, We Were Soldiers, and The Rookie.

The film will tell the origin story of Nemo and his warship, the Nautilus. The unofficial logline reads:

“A fugitive whaler teams up with a naturalist, a mysterious woman and a captain of a futuristic submarine, to search for a lost underwater civilization that holds libraries of vast knowledge and a weapon with the power to destroy mankind.”

McG has said publicly that he wants to cast Will Smith as the film’s title character. Disney hopes to make the film later this year in Australia, and McG is slotting it as his next. This also seems like the perfect type of movie for Disney to release in Disney Digital 3-D.

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.

What do you guys think of this news?
Do you like Randall Wallace as the person to re-write?

Is anyone anticipating this film?

I'm looking forward to more details on this in the future, and would love for this to come out good.