NAUTILUS
FINDING NEMO
THE UNCHARTED HISTORY OF CAPTAIN NEMO RISES TO THE SURFACE IN NAUTILUS
WORDS: NICK SETCHFIELD
PICTURES© VINCE VALITUTTI/DISNEY+, STOCK ELEMENTS: CHANNARONGSDS, MAGICPICS/GETTY
Shazad Latif as the flowinglocked Nemo (centre).
FALL YOU KNOW OF CAPTAIN NEMO is James Mason’s suave submariner in 1954 Disney classic 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, think again. In fact, prepare to take the deepest of dives into a man so thoroughly mysterious that even his name means “nobody”.
“We’re basically trying to do the origin story,” says producer Xavier Marchand of Nautilus, a new 10-part series that returns Jules Verne’s enigmatic hero to the screen. “I always thought it would make a great, cracking adventure story for the entire family.”
“It just felt like a really cool, unique take on how did that character and the Nautilus come to be,” adds Michael Matthews, director of the first four episodes. “Then there’s all the Jules Verne worldbuilding opportunities.
“You’re in the 1800s and you’re blending history and the reality at the time with these more fantastical science fiction ideas. It was really exciting.”
We live in an age where IP is king. From Marvel to Star Wars, John Wick to Jack Reacher, those jealously prized Intellectual Properties power the modern entertainment industry. But IP is nothing new. Pioneering French fantasist Jules Verne gifted the world Captain Nemo in 1870’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Seas – yes, Seas, plural; turns out Sea was the result of a botched English translation – and brought him back five years later in The Mysterious Island. Verne even revived the character for 1882 stage play Journey Through The Impossible.
A scientific visionary and champion of the oppressed, roaming the uncharted oceans in his phenomenally advanced submarine Nautilus, Nemo has endured in no less than three centuries now. He’s spawned countless film and TV adaptations – everyone from Michael Caine to Patrick Stewart has played him – along with books, graphic novels, cartoons and even pop songs (“Left me all alone/Nemo’s going home” warbled Sarah Brightman on her 1993 album Dive). Nautilus, created by Beowulf: Return To The Shieldlands’ Jamie Dormer, builds a backstory from hints found in Verne’s original fiction.