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First rumored by Production Weekly, we confirmed with a source close to the film that the news is accurate, and Emily Blunt is joining Rian Johnson's sci-fi, time travel thriller, "Looper."Blunt will join previously announced stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Bruce Willis in a story that Johnson has
previously described as "
set in a near future where time travel doesn't exist but will be invented in a few decades. [The story] involves a group of killers (called Loopers) who work for a crime syndicate in the future. Their bosses send their targets hogtied and blindfolded back in time to the Loopers, and their job is simply shoot them in the head and dispose of the body. So the target vanishes from the future and the Loopers dispose of a corpse that doesn't technically exist, a very clean system. Complications set in from there."Last we heard, production was gearing up for a January shoot and with the casting now firming up, it looks like it's on track. No word yet on what specific roles the cast will be slotted in but that should be cleared up by time the story hits the trades. No release date yet, but hopefully a late-2011 release, though 2012 is probably more likely.
Ron Howard has signed on direct an adaptation of the true story memoir "My Stroke Of Insight" by brain scientist Jill Bolte Taylor.
The Sony Pictures and Imagine Entertainment co-production is set in 1996 when "the 37-year old Taylor suffered a massive stroke caused by a blood vessel that exploded in the left side of her brain. A Harvard-trained neuro-anatomist, Taylor's brain function deteriorated in a matter or hours to where she couldn't walk, read or write, or even recall past memories. It took 8 years for her to mend. Her knowledge of how the brain works gave her the opportunity to experience and write about brain recovery that became at times a mystical experience, as the right half compensated for the damaged left half and infused her with feelings of peace and well-being that she has tried to retain, even after struggling to reclaim her life and standing in the scientific community." Sounds like some rich material, and certainly something that Howard is eyeing toward awards season (like Steven Spielberg, he tends to alternate between blockbusters and prestige material).
Howard wants Jodie Foster to take on the lead role, but she's not yet attached. No word yet on where this will fall in Howard's schedule. He also recently signed on to direct the first of three films of the mega-"The Dark Tower" franchise being launched by Universal. But we would imagine Howard will try and get this one in the can before beginning extensive work on the Stephen King project. [Deadline]
In general, when we pen a retrospective on a director's oeuvre , we try and save them for when a filmmaker is deep into his career and has a least 15-plus films under his belt. But we're making an exception here for David Fincher, who is obviously considered to be one of the most estimable modern auteurs working today, in the league of Christopher Nolan, if not higher and generally seems to be destined to have a career that will be looked back on with great admiration and panegyrics if it isn't already.
Known for his impeccably stylish, technically meticulous and resoundingly tenebrous films that tend to gravitate towards anti-heroes, flawed protagonists and forsaken souls, Fincher's films are always intensely dark, hyper-detailed, always challenging and never really fit for mass consumption. Yet, with each of his films arriving via a major studio, Fincher's oeuvre does resonate with a strong contingent of mainstream audiences and "The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button" — his most accessible film — earned him the attention of the Academy that ignored his less embraceable, but much better, previous efforts.
The modern horror of his serial killer film " Se7en" placed him firmly on the map, the anarchic "Fight Club" became a cult-classic basically the day it was released in theaters and the filmmaker has been highly in demand ever since. With "The Social Network" logging into theaters — and having already looked at 5 of his films (and more) that have yet to to the screen — we take a look back on an already impressive body of work that is only growing in stature with each new addition.
“The Game” (1997)
“The Game,” the “Twilight Zone”-y thriller about a wealthy businessman (Michael Douglas) who is engaged in an elaborate, possibly nefarious role playing game by his delinquent brother (Sean Penn), is probably David Fincher’s coolest cool-for-coolness-sake pop outing, but also his most hollow. No matter how deeply Fincher wants to connect the material (written by the geniuses that gave us “Terminator 3”) to resonate themes of loss, regret and legacy (since Douglas’ game begins on the anniversary of his father’s suicide), the movie is too slick and polished to be anything more than it is. Thankfully, what it is is a really fun rollercoaster ride, one with plenty of twists and turns and some extremely weird flourishes (like the fact that a large section of the film’s last act takes place in Mexico), anchored by two fine performances by Douglas and Penn (in a role written for Jodie Foster, hence his name - “Connie”). The film is a trifle for sure, with Fincher working comfortably within the flashy boundaries of his music video days and possibly stifled by the resounding critical and commercial approval of “ Se7en,” but it’s hard to fault a movie in which Spike Jonze shows up in the last scene as a concerned EMT technician, because that’s just funny. [C+]
“Zodiac” (2007)
Though he was coming off the box-office success of “Panic Room,” David Fincher’s knack for ambitious material didn’t necessarily make him a studio favorite and so it’s no surprise his next effort, a talky, two and a half hour procedural had Paramount scratching their head. Released to a box-office death in the spring of 2007, the film confounded Fincher-heads who expected the serial killer plotline to bring back the flashy, fleshy pleasures of “Se7en” and while it was praised by critics and landed on numerous top 10 lists, by awards season it was unjustly forgotten. While on the surface, an exhaustive retelling of the search for the famed Zodiac killer, the script by James Vanderbilt slowly spins a tale about the toll and cost of obsession as Robert Graysmith’s (Jake Gyllenhaal) fascination with the case turns into a decades-long hunt that never comes to a satisfactory end. A film that is entirely about the journey and not the destination, “Fight Club” fanboys dismissed the film and also failed to notice Fincher’s jaw dropping technical work on the film. Shot digitally, Fincher utilized a staggering number of digital effects to seamlessly and accurately recreate the 1970s San Francisco skyline and neighborhoods with this own obsession going right down to recreating facsimile newspaper in the San Francisco Chronicle offices that had accurate headlines and articles for the era though they were never on camera. It’s no wonder Fincher related to the material. But the technical wonders would be empty if the film wasn’t so fascinating. Vanderbilt does a wonder job of transferring Graysmith’s obsession to the audience, leading down numerous theories, pathways and puzzles that are both compelling and thrilling. Featuring a wonderful, pre-"Iron Man" turn by Robert Downey Jr. as Graysmith’s smoking, drinking, quipping newsroom colleague Paul Avery and solid turns by Mark Ruffalo and Anthony Edwards as cops tasked to the case, “Zodiac” quietly demonstrates that the terror caused by random and senseless acts of violence can resonate for years. [A]
“Panic Room” (2002)
It's probably not surprising that David Fincher’s biggest hit since “Se7en” came with his least cerebral, most straightforward effort, the slick b-movie "Panic Room." It should be noted that the film faced a major stumbling block when original star Nicole Kidman stepped aside a knee injury attained during the filming of “Moulin Rouge” sidelined her (though you can see some early footage with Kidman on the ridiculously stacked triple disc DVD edition of the film). Luckily, Jodie Foster came in (pregnant too, no less) to save the day and she was probably a better choice for the desperate, tough as nails mother who has to protect herself and her daughter when home invaders crash the posh Upper West Side home they've just purchased. If the single-setting film is pure Hitchcock, then so is the Macguffin; an enveloper containing valuable bearer bonds that are really of no consequence and just there to drive the plot. Again displaying his digital virtuosity, Fincher sets up some bravura set pieces (particularly the single-shot, triple-level break-and-enter sequence early in the film) and some clever approaches that open up the static environment. The film relies strongly on its performances and Fincher gets them from Foster and particularly Dwight Yoakam as the delightfully deranged Raoul. Forest Whitaker is solid as the baddie with a heart but less convincing is Jared Leto as the cocky mastermind who does a bad Brad Pitt impression for most of the film. But if the mechanics are on the place, the heart isn't. While the nods to “Rear Window” and “The Killing” are nice, the closing shot of the film finds the sympathy somewhat misplaced and the film’s relentless movement doesn't always keep the steam it works so hard to build up. [B-]
“The Social Network” (2010)
The defining film of a generation? Not quite. But don’t get us wrong, there is much to love about David Fincher’s tale about the founding of Facebook. Largely ditching the camera trickery of his previous efforts, “The Social Network” finds Fincher’s focus squarely on the dialogue-heavy text of Aaron Sorkin’s rapid-fire script, and he delivers a thrilling, always-moving narrative that whips through 160 plus pages of screenplay in two hours that feels more like 90 minutes. His ensemble of young talent step up to plate with Jesse Eisenberg delivering a career best performance and Armie Hammer stealing every scene he’s in as the privileged Winkelvoss twins. But even though the story is complex and riveting, the characters aren't always as rich. With key relationships underdeveloped and thinly drawn — between Mark Zuckerberg (Eisenberg) his best friend Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield) and his ex-girlfriend Erica Albright (Rooney Mara) — the film lacks the emotional resonance it strives for in the latter half of the film. And structurally, the film is more or less the best episode of “Law & Order” you’ll ever see in your life. But, lucky for us, the film was guided by the immaculately-composed hand of Fincher. It's almost like an in-the-moment "All The President's Men" surging forward in real time, and propelled by a wonderfully minimal and minor key score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, “The Social Network” is grand, populist entertainment at its best. [A-]
“The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button” (2008)
Fincher’s seventh feature-length effort is his beautiful folly: a sprawling epic about a man who ages backwards (Brad Pitt), set against the backdrop of an ever-changing America and formed from the relative noodle of a F. Scott Fitzgerald story that never quite finds its emotional footing. The film is peppered with some unbelievable moments (like the opening clock tower story/backwards war sequence) and delicately calibrated performances (particularly from Cate Blanchett), but Fincher seems more interested in the technology of aging (and then de-aging) a wonderfully detached Pitt than anything else (that technology is, admittedly, impressive and quite cutting edge). Additionally, Eric Roth’s script falters (if Benjamin narrates, how, exactly, does he know the unconnected aspects that surrounded Blanchett’s accident in that really wonderful sequence?) as often as it connects (Benjamin’s extended affair with Tilda Swinton), leaving the entire enterprise to feel off kilter and wobbly, full of amazing highs and crater-ish lulls. Maybe the film is best read as a time travel story, with Benjamin Button a displaced journeyman forced to watch the world change while he remains untouched. It would certainly explain why Benjamin, and Fincher himself, keep such a distance from the emotional core of the story, and place emphasis where Fincher thought it belonged: on technology, not people. [C+]
“ Se7en” (1995)
Perhaps Fincher's still most fully-realized and haunting picture, "Se7en," is an unforgettable modern crime classic and a landmark film that essentially made the careers of Brad Pitt, Gwyneth Paltrow and the filmmaker (Pitt's first leading role was only the year before in "Legends of the Fall"). Grisly, dark and dank, the mood and aesthetics of this seminal serial killer film are second to none and the entire film carries the weight of a rotten, festering wound that's about to burst. Unless you're somehow unaware, the film centers on two detectives, a disillusioned old-timer counting down the days of his upcoming retirement (Morgan Freeman) and the naive, aggressive newbie trying to make his mark (Brad Pitt), in their search to stop a psychotic serial killer (Kevin Spacey) who is picking off his victims using the seven deadly sins as a guide. The dichotomy of the cops' two trajectories in life is just one simple rich texture in what is a layered tapestry of various unsettling psychological elements. And while this might sound like standard Hollywood fare, Fincher largely bypasses the buddy-cop and action cliches to deliver a twisted and disturbing thriller that irrevocably scars both the audience and its character in its unbelievable, jaw-dropping conclusion (one, that Brad Pitt had to fight for, threatening the studio he'd bail on doing publicity for the film if Fincher's cut wasn't kept intact). Fincher's been accused several times of his coldness and his aloofness, but here that distance allows his dour message about humanity's inhumanity and depravity to land with shocking, arresting and enduring impact. "Se7en" is ultimately about the corrosion of morality and the decay of the human soul across society and Fincher has never been so comfortable than within this condemning milieu. The term "What's in the box?" will never be the same for many. [A]
“Fight Club” (1999)
"Overrated"? Adored by the most mongoloid of male filmgoers. Goes off the rails in the third act; throw whatever censure you want at "Fight Club," — and you might not be wrong — but David Fincher is nowhere more at home (aside from maybe "Se7vn") than he is with the devilish, mischievous comedy and psychosocial disturbed mien of his 1999 paean to nihilism, shit-disturbing destruction and male emasculation. Adapted from (and deeply expanded upon) Chuck Palahniuk's novel, in its superficial bare bones form, "Fight Club" is about an everyman (Edward Norton) so despairing and paralyzed with his mundane life that he develops an acute from of insomnia that leads him to Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt); an uber-charming and Machiavellian soap-maker and a prophet of chaos who proselytizes the ultimate form of salvation — perhaps reincarnation — in the form of basement, bare-knuckle fighting. But Fincher's violent and deeply acidic picture uses this premise as a launching pad to explore American male masculinity, identity, and the sickening homogenization of culture; the central problem of this protagonist might just be the societal ennui-like disease that's rotting us all from the inside as we act like spectators and tourists in our own lives. "Fight Club" is ultimately the grandest (and fascistic) carpe diem, a brutal and yet often hilarious, self-created wake-the-fuck-up call birthed from one of the most ambitious self-delusions ever demonstrated from an unreliable narrator. [A-]
“Alien 3” (1993)
There’s a reason that the documentary about the making of “Alien 3” on the forthcoming Blu-ray box set is called “Rape and Wreckage;” this wasn’t what you would call a smooth shoot. Originally conceived as a film about monks living in a wooden planet, it became, under the creative guidance of Fincher (as his first feature film), about a prison colony of murderers, thieves, and rapists who take in the marooned Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver, sans hair) and help her fight the drippy alien beast from the previous films. Well, not exactly like the previous films. This beastie was born from a dog, so it was slicker and sleeker and moved around the tight corridors like a rocket, which is a good metaphor for the young director that oversaw the project. Working from a compromised conception, not to mention an ill-negotiated premise (the film’s misleading teaser, riffing on the famous tagline of the original film, promised that “On earth, everyone can hear you scream”) and an impossible release date, and the results are a fascinating muddle: every actor, their head closely scalped, looks exactly-the-fucking-same; intriguing subplots (like a prison worshipping the alien as a dragon) were sheared away; and Fincher’s unerring cynicism turned a summer escapist romp into a tortured examination of the nature of death. His keen eye was already present (the drippy facility, the bar-codes on the back of the prisoners’ necks), but his sense of story still needed sharpening. If Fincher's reputation for control precedes him, all one needs to do is look back on the disastrous results of this film — and the experience which he described as his worst — to understand why. [C]
— Kevin Jagernauth, Oliver Lyttelton, Drew Taylor, Danielle Johnsen
With the impressive and haunting teaser trailer for the Coen Brothers' upcoming "True Grit" reminding everyone that the Oscar race is far from over, the marketing campaign continues for one of the year's most anticipated films.
The old school, Wanted-style teaser poster has arrived and we dig it. A lot. With the words "Punishment" and "Retribution" bookending the top and bottom of the poster with a thin stream of blood running down the page, it says more about the film than big headed poster for "The Tourist" that also landed online. Starring Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon, Josh Brolin, Barry Pepper and newcomer Hailee Steinfeld, the film follows a young girl (Steinfeld) who acquires the assistance of aging, drunken U.S. Marshal Rooster J. Cogburn (Bridges) and young Texas Ranger, La Boeuf (Damon) to track down her father's killer, Tom Chaney (Brolin), who has taken to a gang led by "Lucky" Ned Pepper (Pepper).
"True Grit" will make your Christmas merry, opening on December 25th. Look for an extended trailer this weekend in theaters, and online early next week.
For the bulk of his career, David Fincher wasn't exactly prolific. After his debut with "Alien³" in 1995, like Steven Spielberg and Ridley Scott, he's attached himself to dozens of projects over the years, often ones that prove to be difficult to get green lit. Not that there's any sign of this letting up now. Entering a purple patch in his career (next Christmas' "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" will be his fourth film in five years) the director has a wide array of potential projects on the horizon including "20,000 Leagues Under The Sea," "Heavy Metal," "The Girl Who Played With Fire," HBO series "Mindhunter" and who knows what else percolating further down the line.
But what of the projects that slipped through the cracks? As soon as "Se7en" pushed him onto the A-list, there have been a number of intriguing projects linked to Fincher that never saw the light of day. Whether falling apart just as they seemed ready to go, or never quite getting the support from those who hold the Hollywood purse strings, they provide an fascinating look at avenues and genres Fincher has yet to explore on screen (sci-fi and comedy) as well as material that fits very much into the thematic and aesthetic wheelhouse that is associated with his name. With "The Social Network" hitting theaters today, we've rounded up five that we'd still love to see some day.
"Rendezvous With Rama"
Let's face it, should Fincher ever make this movie it will be his Stanley Kubrick-esque science-fiction space epic. Not only was the project based off Arthur C. Clarke's novel (he wrote '2001'), the picture has space odyssey written all over it. Shepherded under the aegis of actor Morgan Freeman for over a decade, the actor admitted to MTV in 2007, "it's a very intellectual science fiction, a very difficult book to translate cinematically." Making the sell even harder he said, "There are no guns, no explosions. Although it's fiction, it's all based on pure science."
An opaque sci-fi novel about mankind's awakening relationship with the universe and zero action? Paging Terrence Malick maybe? Otherwise yeah, we see how it would incredibly difficult to get a studio on board. The novels (four of them in total) focused on a 30-mile-long hollow cylindrical alien spaceship that is discovered in our solar system and a group of space explorers sent out to investigate, who find out its intentions and unlock its mysteries. But since the novels had little action to speak of, the project could have ended up more "Solaris" then "Sunshine" (and neither project was very profitable at the box-office) and it never got off the ground.
Freeman spent years developing the passion project (he once wanted to direct himself) until he convinced his "Se7en" director to take a crack at it in 2007, but by the following year Fincher had pronounced the project dead. Freeman had been in an auto accident a few months prior and the filmmaker had said even after all this time there was no script.
Our only hope is that Alfonso Cuarón's action sci-fi film "Gravity" gets made and somehow does gangbusters at the box-office and then studios start rifling through their drawers for similar projects. But one really can't imagine the slow, arty and hypnotic "2001: A Space Odyssey" being green lit in this day and age, let alone a picture that sounds like its not-too-distant cousin, that is unless some superstar cast comes on board and those names will sadly have to be much bigger than Morgan Freeman.
"They Fought Alone" aka "Fertig" David Fincher, "Chinatown" scribe Robert Towne, Brad Pitt and WWII -- can we see this film made like, tomorrow, please?
Originally titled "Fertig" and then changed to "They Fought Alone," the story centered on Wendell Fertig, a civil engineer and American Colonel who led a rogue American-Filipino "barefoot" guerrilla force on the Japanese-occupied, southern Philippine island of Mindanao during World War II. The script was written by Willam Nicholson, a co-writer of "Gladiator," and while it was supposed to be Fincher's post-"Panic Room" project, the film obviously never materialized. One has to wonder with "The Thin Red Line" and HBO's "The Pacific," has this WWII setting been done too much? Then again, this tale is about a bare-bones outfit — they allegedly made bullets from curtain rods; telegraph wires from iron fence — and how they took to the jungle to survive and fight the war on their own terms after the U.S. Army forces had already surrendered.
Yes, Brad Pitt was in Quentin Tarantino's revisionist WWII comedy "Inglourious Basterds," but we would like to end our lifetime seeing Pitt in one gritty and visceral WWII film, and who better than under the direction of Fincher. Yet "They Fought Alone," has been kicking around since late 2001, so the chances of it ever being made seem slim. There was a glimmer of hope in 2009 during discussions of the deluxe DVD edition of "Chinatown" — Fincher did a commentary track — when Towne noted the two were mutual admirers of each other's work and said, "we're" trying to make a movie together" (and Fincher had revealed months earlier that "Fertig" was indeed that project). But it's been almost a decade (Tom Cruise was interested at one point) and as Fincher keeps piling on new projects and Towne continues to age, we're not sure this one will ever happen. Though to be honest, simple premise alone, we're there the day it hits screens and months before as its champion.
"Torso"
On the surface, the "Torso" project — a true-crime graphic novel about Eliot Ness' post-Untouchables/Al Capone days — would entrench Fincher deeply back into his familiar serial-killer world. Written by Brian Michael Bendis and Marc Andreyko, the novels placed Ness in Cleveland years after Capone had been brought to justice and centered on a true-life serial killer taunting the detective with notes regarding the hacked-off and lifeless torsos that had been popping up in the city. While ostensibly about a psychotic murderer, the project also sounded more in line with Fincher's interest in obsessions, among other themes. "I'm not interested in the serial killer thing," he told MTV in 2007. "I'm interested in Eliot Ness and the de-mythologizing [of him] because 'The Untouchables' was only two-three years of (his) story. There's a whole other, much sinister downside to it. We want to make the 'Citizen Kane' of cop movies."
Gestating since 2004, "Torso" looked like it had found its missing body parts in late 2008 when it appeared like Matt Damon would be taking the lead and Rachel McAdams, Casey Affleck, and Gary Oldman would be joining the cast (though Fincher once called most of the casting names "rumors"), but the film fell victim — like many do — to studio politics. Fincher was warring with Paramount at the time over the exorbitant running time of "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," and in a game of retributive who-would-fold-first, the studio let the rights to 'Torso' lapse in a reported "fuck you" to the director. Fincher responded by taking his "Heavy Metal" project (which Paramount had already dropped as an earlier slap on the wrist) to Sony where it looks like he's found a new home ('Social Network' and 'Dragon Tattoo' are set up there and it's the first studio where he's made back-to-back projects). Last we heard, while 'Torso' rights had lapsed, the producers — Bill Mechanic, the former Fox exec ballsy enough to green light "Fight Club" — still felt the film would be made, and a few months later, Bendis (who now owns the rights again) said the same thing, but there's been little movement in over a year. Whether Fincher ever decides to return to the material remains to be seen, but the cast alone is enough for us to buy a ticket years in advance.
"Seared"/"Untitled Chef Project"
You wouldn't take Fincher to be a closet foodie, somehow; everything that's been reported about his working practices suggests he's probably a food-is-fuel kind of guy. But he's twice come close to directing films set in the culinary world, and it's not difficult to see why it appealed to the helmer: the high-pressure hierarchy of a restaurant kitchen isn't a world away from a film set. More importantly, both scripts, like "Zodiac," and to some degree "The Social Network," dealt with obsession — in this case, people driven, over-and-above all else, by a desire to achieve perfection, and you can see why David "99-Takes" Fincher might identify.
The first project was "Seared," a loose adaptation of renegade New York chef Anthony Bourdain's memoir "Kitchen Confidential." Around 2001, Brad Pitt was attached to star as Luke Casdin, the infamous hard-living chef at top Manhattan restaurant Horatio's, with Benicio Del Toro also linked to the role of Bobby, his sous chef. The tone's not unlike "Shampoo" as directed by Martin Scorsese, as Luke juggles relationships with his 17-year-old girlfriend and with an older restaurant critic, while trying to keep his kitchen going over a busy weekend. The script, by Jesse Wigutow ("It Runs In The Family"), is strong and well-observed, capturing the controlled chaos of a top kitchen perfectly, and it's full of the kind of hijinks that Bourdain's excellent book is full of — snorting coke off worktops, sleeping with a newly-married woman on her wedding day. But Fincher was burnt out after "Panic Room," and New Line decided to instead turn the book into the short lived Fox sitcom of the same name, which starred Bradley Cooper in an early leading role.
"Untitled Chef Project" was a later, separate project, written by Steven Knight ("Dirty Pretty Things," "Eastern Promises"), although there's plenty in common with the earlier film — a coke-addled, driven chef protagonist, for instance, who was set to be played by Keanu Reeves. Fincher told MTV in 2008 that, "It's good and chewy. It's like a celibate sex comedy if that means anything. It's really about the creative process. It's truly an aromatic art-form, making food. I love that idea. And I love Keanu's passion for that world." Knight's script is more conventional — a protagonist in search of a redemption, a more formal romance with his fish chef (albeit one that involves Reeves' character threatening her with a knife at one point), and the structure is almost like a caper movie in places — but it's also a strong piece of work.
In the end, Fincher focused on "Torso," and then took on "The Social Network," so the project hit the backburner: it's still theoretically an ongoing concern, but we'd be surprised if it saw the light of day in the same form. Having said that, it's clear that haute cuisine is a particular interest of Fincher's, his having circled the subject for close to 10 years now, and we're sure he'll find a way to scratch that itch in the future. A live-action "Ratatouille" remake, anyone?
"Black Hole"
Of all the grown-up, post-"Watchmen" graphic novels, Charles Burns' "Black Hole" (unrelated to the batshit-crazy Disney space adventure of the same name) is one of the most acclaimed. Published between 1995 and 2005, and collected in a complete volume in that final year, Burns' work is set in 1974, and follows a group of Seattle teenagers who contract a sexually-transmitted-disease that causes physical mutations. A cure-all metaphor for sexual awakening and adolescence, it picked up all kinds of praise when finally collected, and unsurprisingly swiftly picked up attention from Hollywood, with Paramount picking up the rights.
Alexandre Aja ("Haute Tension," "Piranha 3D") was the first to be attached, with the promising team of Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary (whose script for "Beowulf" is much better than the film deserved) hired to pen the script. The pair worked on it for a couple of years, until, in February 2008, shortly before the release of "Zodiac," it was announced that David Fincher would direct the film. Gaiman related on his blog shortly afterwards that, with the helmer likely to demand multiple rewrites, Paramount had hired a cheaper scribe, and that Gaiman and Avary had left the project.
That cheaper writer turned out to be D.W. Harper, who's behind the currently-buzzed about projects "All You Need Is Kill" that Doug Liman will direct and "Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters," which Jeremy Renner and Noomi Rapace may star in. It's unclear in the February 2009-dated draft we obtained how much of Gaiman and Avary's work Harper retained, but it's very good work — David Cronenberg-meets-"Dazed and Confused," respectful of the source material and with a keen sense of period, with all the horror and angst it should have, and a neat sense of poetry.
With Fincher showing a surprising affinity for the dark nuances of under-25 relationships in "The Social Network," it would have been fascinating to see the finished product, but as ever, he's a busy man, and Pajiba reported in August that he was no longer attached to the project, and it seems likely that "Black Hole" will pass into the annals of the great movies never made.
Honorable Mentions
Ever since "The Game" was completed, Fincher's had one particular passion project: "Mank." It's unsurprising that he had such a particular interest in the project, a biopic of "Citizen Kane" writer Herman Mankiewicz with Kevin Spacey set in the lead, as the script was written by his father, Howard Fincher, a former journalist. The Ridley Scott-produced TV movie "RKO 281" killed the project for a while, and Fincher Sr. passed a way a few years back, but this may well reappear down the line. Fincher also came close to re-teaming with Spacey on "Chemical Pink," a drama set in the world of female body building, based on the novel by Katie Arnoldi, with a script by "Fight Club" writer Chuck Palahniuk, but he passed it off to Jonas Akerlund ("Spun") and the film never materialized.
Despite his bad experience with his "Alien" film, Fincher has come close to returning to franchise/tentpole territory: Nicolas Cage persuaded him to develop an adaptation of Frank Miller's graphic novel "Hard Boiled" for some time, which would have been a fully CGI-feature, although that seems to be long dead now. And like fellow serial-attachee Joe Carnahan, the director spent a year prepping for "Mission Impossible 3," with a dark, violent script involving organ trafficking in Africa, but bailed in favor of skateboarding drama "Lords of Dogtown" — which did eventually hit the screens, as directed by Catherine Hardwicke.
Fincher was also attached to "Stay," the much buzzed about spec from David Benioff, which also was eventually made by another director: in this case, Marc Forster ("Quantum of Solace"), who, despite a strong cast including Ryan Gosling, Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor, botched it so badly that the film barely saw a release. He's also briefly flirted with other big name projects — including, strangely enough, future Oscar-winner "Chicago" (which may sound like an odd match, but Fincher's a huge Bob Fosse fan, counting "All That Jazz" among his favorite movies, and he's already said he'd love to direct a musical, so it would have been an interesting one to watch).
There was also the bizarre body-snatching alien parasite thriller "Passengers," regularly named as one of the great unmade scripts (it's written in the first person, unusually); David Ayer's Cold War submarine drama "Squids," which was scuppered by 9/11; the graphic novel adaptation "The Killer"; a remake of "Strangers On A Train" for Joel Silver; and another remake, of one of Fincher's favorite movies, "The Reincarnation of Peter Proud." The latter's one of the longest-running projects on the director's slate: it's been in development with Scott Rudin since 2001, but as late as last year, "Se7en" writer Andrew Kevin Walker was hired to give it another stab.
Most, if not all of these projects seem to be dead, although it's possible that one could be resurrected. It seems likely that the Scott Z. Burns-penned version of "20,000 Leagues Under The Sea" or 'Dragon Tattoo' sequel "The Girl Who Played With Fire" will be next, and we'd put money on it being the former. But, as we've demonstrated, you can never quite guess with David Fincher...
Frankly, these contender stories are boring so let's get to the good stuff. Buried in Deadline's story about who has joined the list of female leads for "Spider-Man" is a much more intriguing little nugget: Sony wants to bring back Venom and wants Philip Seymour Hoffman to play him.
Bear in mind, it's who they want, not who they're gonna get, and we may have laughed at this suggestion in the past, but with the likes of Mark Ruffalo cashing in their indie cred to play The Hulk, it's not so far-fetched. And let's not forget than Hoffman is no stranger to tentpoles, playing the villain in "Mission: Impossible 3." Hoffman wasn't the first name to be rumored for the villain, as Christoph Waltz's name cropped up late in the summer, but it's the first we hear of Venom which makes us wonder if more than one baddie will be in store (though Venom in the "Spider-Man" origin story seems to make no sense and is far too soon). But Hoffman as a baddie in "Spider-man"? That's the most exciting news about this film since Andrew Garfield signed on.
Onto the more boring news, which starts with the question: who, who and who? If you didn't think Sony and director Marc Webb were casting a huge, wide net for the female leads for Peter Parker in the forthcoming "Spider-Man" reboot, this should be an indication.
The upcoming/unknown Dianna Agron ("Glee," sorry we don't watch the show), Georgina Haig ("Wasted On The Young") and Dominique McElligott (Sam Rockwell's wife in "Moon") are in consideration for the roles of Gwen Stacy and Mary Jane Watson. Agron actually tested last night, and we would imagine Haig and McElligott will be shortly.
According to Deadline, Agron, Haig, McElligott and the previously revealed Emma Stone and Mia Wasikowska are the final five candidates, but also adds the caveat that more may be added, so basically, this thing is not quite over and don't be surprised if more names crop up next week.
Ed Norton has got some talented friends, in high places. Speaking at the Variety Screening Series (via Pitchfork) presentation of his upcoming legal/sexual thriller "Stone," Norton reveals Radiohead's Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood helped inspire the score for the film by John O'Brien.
"I'm friends with the guys in Radiohead. And Johnny Greenwood, who did the incredible score for Paul Anderson's 'There Will Be Blood,' met me in London a while back when John (Curran) and I were developing the script," Norton recalls.
"So given the spiritual ties in this film, I started talking to him about this idea: 'What would you use to record this divine-like tuning sound?' And he and Thom (Yorke) had been playing a lot of weird ambient stuff at the time and so, amazingly, they just unloaded tons and tons of files to us of these sound experiments that they had been doing. We just listened to them in awe until John (Curran) eventually got John O'Brien to come in and see what he could make of it."
It's unclear if O'Brien used the sound files as a jumping off point for his own score or re-cut and re-assembled the material; there is no composer credit for the film that we can find. We're just mostly amazed Radiohead handed over tapes of their experiments; we'd kill to hear it. You can go over the film's official site and hear some of the music from the film, and parts of it definitely sound like it could easily have come from Yorke/Greenwood.
As for the film, the reviews from TIFF were not good and advance word in general is not strong on the film. "Stone," starring Ed Norton, Robert De Niro and Milla Jovovich, opens in limited release starting October 8th.
First rumored by Production Weekly, we confirmed with a source close to the film that the news is accurate, and Emily Blunt is joining Rian Johnson's sci-fi, time travel thriller, "Looper."
