With Hollywood mining comic books, toys, board games and established film and pop-culture properties like there’s no tomorrow, it was only a matter of time before Captain Nemo and his Nautilus would surface again.

Development has been underway at Disney for months on an updated screen version of the classic Jules Verne story, “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea,” with McG (“Terminator Salvation”) attached to direct. THR’s Heatvision blog is now reporting that Disney has cut McG from the project because his vision was too dark for the material.  The studio is currently in talks with David Fincher to direct, and “Bourne Ultimatum” writer, Scott Z. Burns, to pen the script.

It’s ironic that the studio has decided to go with Fincher as an alternative to McG’s darker take on the story considering Fincher’s pitch black track record of R-rated nihilistically-tinged films like “Fight Club,” “Zodiac,” and “Seven.”  But it was reportedly Fincher who approached newly hired production head, Sean Bailey, with the idea of doing a “four-quadrant tentpole movie.”

Verne’s original story, published in 1869, focuses on a group of men who encounter a crazed scientist and his militaristic submarine.  The classic science fiction novel is in the public domain, but Disney has been most prominently associated with the material since the studio’s 1954 version that starred Kirk Douglas.

Details about the story are being kept under tight wraps but the Fincher/Burns version of the tale is described as being in the vein of “Star Wars.”