David Fincher Says '20,000 Leagues Under the Sea' Likely to Be 70% CG

David Fincher is a forward-thinking kind of guy. In the '90s, when digital effects were still relatively young, he put CGI to work in Alien 3, and heavily used digital images to journey through the brain (and the apartment) of Tyler Durden in Fight Club. He has embraced digital cinematography and the various benefits it provides, and employed such extensive CGI work on The Curious Case of Benjamin Button that the skinny version of young Steve Rogers in Captain America is referred to by many as the Ben Button version of Chris Evans.

So it is no surprise to hear that he would be interested in performance capture, and that his version of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea might be primarily created in computer workstations. We've known of his attachment to the project for a few months, but other than the fact that it will be 3D, we haven't heard much from the director at all about his Jules Verne adaptation/remake. But at a Q&A not long ago, he mentioned the project briefly, and those comments are after the break.

At an Actors Studio Q&A at the Swedish Film Institute, David Fincher was asked by /Film reader Viktor J (who sent us this clip) about his possible interest in doing a motion-capture or performance-capture film. The director said,

I would love to to something like that. I would love to do something probably more like Avatar than Tintin. I like the idea of something that is a little more… complicated. (chuckles) I love the idea of a 'cartoon', but I would like it to be sort of very, very dense. And, in fact, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea will be probably 70% CG. [...] I love motion capture and think it's only in its infancy, and eventually there won't be a difference between motion capture and acting. because that's all motion capture is, is being able to capture acting.

Here's the clip. Fincher's comments start about forty seconds in. Watch the whole thing for his account of meeting Daniel Craig on the set of Tintin, which Craig has already recounted as an embarrassing moment.

Thanks to Viktor for sending this along.

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