Most people know Jules Verne as the guy who brought Doc Brown and Mary Steenburgen together in Back to the Future III, but he’s also a writer. In fact, he wrote a lot of things you might have heard of or, plausibly, read. In 2008, Brendan Fraser and Josh Hutcherson starred in Journey to the Center of the Earth, a family-friendly adventure movie based on Verne’s novel of the same name. Hutcherson revived his role in last month’s Journey 2: The Mysterious Island (based on Verne’s The Mysterious Island), opposite Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. And now, the Journey 2 director and writers are signing up to add a third installment to the series…presumably, with Hutcherson in mind to star—call it a hunch. He sure seemed to love his stint in the first two films.
But here’s the problem. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea has already had dibs called on it by David Fincher (and you do not want to get between Fincher and his passion projects), and Around the World in 80 Days was brought to screen just a few years back, with Jackie Chan at the lead. Of course, these stories should still be free range for Peyton and crew, but it might be wiser to dig up some of Verne’s lesser known works for the threequel.
