Sorry to the 6 Dudes Who Wanted Fincher's UNDER THE SEA and DRAGON TATTOO Sequel...

 

Collider recently popped up with word that Fincher's sequel to 2011's highly praised but commercially unsuccessful The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played With Fire, is now all but dead; as is his planned adaption of 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, which I remember reading about my Freshman year of high-school.

Fincher did try his damndest to make the picture happen, but couldn’t wrangle a bankable lead actor.  Brad Pitt passed to do Fury, Matt Damon and Daniel Craig didn’t want to commit to the a 140-day shoot away from their families, Channing Tatum wasn’t seen as a bankable enough, and Fincher didn’t agree with Disney’s suggestion to cast Chris Hemsworth.  Rather than continue fighting for his expensive project that was already a risky proposition for Disney (and one that now seems ludicrous considering the massive failures the studio had in trying to adapt older properties with John Carter and The Lone Ranger), Fincher moved to Gone Girl

This left where on Earth Fincher could be with the Dragon Tattoo sequel, well, with the new Bond-film expected for 2015, Craig starting on Broadway, and Fincher doing Gone Girl, they'd have less than a year together to possibly do the film. Well.

According to The Playlist, the studio hired Fincher’s Se7en screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker to re-write the script, and he’s reportedly almost finished.  However, the new problem is the production window.  Apparently, the studio has come to terms on paying Craig, but now there’s almost no time for both him and Fincher to make the film.  Fincher is planning to shoot Gone Girl this fall, Craig is going to be on Broadway from October to January in the play Betrayal, so that leaves only a short amount of time in early 2014 for the two to get together, and this is assuming the director isn’t bogged down on post-production forGone Girl.  If they can’t come together in that time frame, then Craig is off to do Bond 24, and Sony has to consider if they want to hold off on Girl Who Played with Fire until 2015.

THR reported today that:

Still, one possible sticking point is Gone Girl's budget, which is in the process of being finalized. Budget issues torpedoed Fincher's chances of directing a 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea remake for Disney. Fincher's chances of helming a sequel to Dragon Tattoo, which Sony shot on a $90 million budget, are all but dead.