20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1997 Hallmark film) produced by Hallmark Entertainment. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1997 Hallmark film) 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea is a 1997 television film directed by Michael Anderson and starring Ben Cross as Captain Nemo. It premiered on March 23, 1997. Based on the novel of the same name by Jules Verne, it is most notable for replacing the character of Professor Aronnax's manservant, Conseil, with the Professor's daughter, Sophie, who disguises herself as a boy so that she may accompany her father aboard the USS "Abraham Lincoln"; she becomes the apex of a love triangle involving Captain Nemo and Ned the
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea seas and charted all oceans. Verne would have known of Matthew Maury's international fame and perhaps Maury's French ancestry. References are made to other such Frenchmen as Jean-François de Galaup, comte de Lapérouse, a famous explorer who was lost while circumnavigating the globe; Dumont D'Urville, the explorer who found the remains of Lapérouse's ship; and Ferdinand Lesseps, builder of the Suez Canal and the nephew of the sole survivor of Lapérouse's expedition. The "Nautilus" seems to follow the footsteps of these men: she visits the waters where Lapérouse was lost; she sails to Antarctic waters and becomes stranded there, just