The film's storyline is based on the 1870 novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas by Jules Verne.

Captain Nemo guides his submarine directly beneath the four people who had been aboard the ship and fallen into the sea during the attack.

A woman's ghost (Princess Daaker) has haunted Denver, a former British colonial officer in India, whom he attacked years ago.

In elaborate flashback scenes to India, Nemo reveals he is Prince Daaker and created the Nautilus to seek revenge on Charles Denver.

It overjoyed him to discover that the abandoned wild girl is his long-lost daughter, but his emotion overcomes him, and he dies.

[9] For the scene featuring a battle with an octopus, cinematographer John Ernest Williamson devised a viewing chamber called the "photosphere", a 6×10-foot steel globe in which a cameraman could be placed.

Yet in 1916, they financed this film's innovative special effects, location photography, large sets, exotic costumes, sailing ships, and full-size navigable mock-up of the surfaced submarine Nautilus.

[8] Hal Erickson has said that "the cost of this film was so astronomical that it could not possibly post a profit, putting the kibosh on any subsequent Verne adaptations for the next 12 years".