During the very early stages of development, Paul Greengrass was rumored to be the first choice as the director for this film.
Both Hugh Jackman & Will Smith were rumored at one point in time for the leading role.
In August 2017, Deadline reported that the original plan was to start production in spring 2018 for a holiday 2019 release, but with Guillermo del Toro's The Shape of Water (2017) commitments and potential award season activity. The plan was for Fantastic Voyage (????) to restart its lengthy prep period in spring 2018 to begin production by fall 2018 at the latest, pushing the release to 2020. The project would have united del Toro with his longtime friend James Cameron (as a producer) and screenwriter David Goyer who penned Blade II (2002). Unfortunately, plans changed again, after finishing production on The Shape of Water & his promotional commitments to the film, then winning award acclaim for it, del Toro decided he needed a break after the rough production & promotion scheduling with The Shape of Water. It looked like del Toro would comeback to the project after his year long hiatus & would make Fantastic Voyage as his post-award follow up film but del Toro decided to do a re-adaptation of Nightmare Alley (2020) instead leaving Fantastic Voyage's status up in the air as of August 2019.
A Fantastic Voyage remake has been in the depths of development hell for many years with a revolving door of potential directors (Roland Emmerich, Paul Greengrass, Shawn Levy), stars (Will Smith, Hugh Jackman) and screenwriters (Shane Salerno, Laeta Kalogridis, Marianne & Cormac Wibberley).
The film will reportedly make use of the same 3D technology Cameron used for Avatar.