David Fincher on the set of ‘Mank’. Photo: Gisele Schmidt/Netflix.
Preview:
David Fincher is reportedly aboard a new western called ‘Bitterroot’.
Michael Gilio wrote the script, which appeared on the 2008 Black List
Netflix has yet to confirm Fincher’s attachment.
It’s fair to say that the Western is having a mixed time in terms of success at the moment. While Taylor Sheridan’s modern-day take on the genre ‘Yellowstone’ (and its period set prequels) have been doing great business, Kevin Costner (who effectively left the parent ‘Yellowstone’ series to pursue his passion project) has seen giant Western saga ‘Horizon’ stumble at the box office, with theatrical plans for the second film in the franchise currently on hold.
Despite that, it appears David Fincher may be ready to try his hand at an oater, with What’s On Netflix reporting that he’s on board for a Western called ‘Bitterroot.’
‘Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves’ from Paramount Pictures and eOne.
Michael Gilio, who also wrote the script draft that got ‘Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves’ into development, crafted ‘Bitterroot,’ which hit the 2008 Black List when it was originally titled ‘Big Hole.’
The movie’s premise apparently concerns an elderly rancher whose life savings have been stolen.
He sets out to get his money back by robbing banks and hunting down the thieves — all while being pursued by his son, who is the sheriff. Compelling, eh?!
Comparisons have been made to Clint Eastwood classic ‘Unforgiven,’ so even with the riskier marketplace, this is a script that will surely be mad at some point. And it’s perhaps not surprising that given its long lifespan in the Hollywood marketplace, there has been at least one previous attempt to bring it to screens. Blind Wink Productions and Aversano Films were working on it with Gilio on board to both write and direct and Gore Verbinski to produce back in 2011.
We’ll caution at this point that Netflix has yet to officially comment on the possibility, though this appears –– according to What’s On Netflix’s sources –– to be coming together quickly, with casting offers out to potential stars.
What else is Fincher developing?
(L to R) Gary Oldman and David Fincher on the set of ‘Mank’. Photo: Miles Crist/Netflix.
The ever-busy filmmaker, who last directed ‘The Killer’ for the streaming service, has a couple of other irons in the Netflix fire.
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There is a US version of ‘Squid Game’ that is awaiting approval from the company (budget issues are reportedly a sticking point, though you’ve got to imagine Netflix would look to get this made given the original series’ popularity).
And also? Fincher has been circling a ‘Chinatown’ prequel series that would follow the story before the classic movie.
On the movie front, the director has an untitled crime thriller at an early stage of development, but details are naturally scarce.
(L to R) David Fincher and Gary Oldman on the set of ‘Mank’. Photo: Miles Crist/Netflix.
The rise in the genre’s popularity is a result of box office successes like Kenneth Branagh’s Hercule Poirot series, including ‘Murder on the Orient Express’ and ‘Death on the Nile,’ and director Rian Johnson‘s ‘Knives Out,’ and its new sequel, ‘Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery,’ which is currently in theaters and premieres on Netflix December 23rd.
In honor of ‘Glass Onion’s release, Moviefone is counting down the 25 greatest mystery movies of all time!
Without further ado, grab your detective hat and let’s begin!
Lake Tahoe, 1969. Seven strangers, each one with a secret to bury, meet at El Royale, a decadent motel with a dark past. In the course of a fateful night, everyone will have one last shot at redemption. Starring Jeff Bridges, Cynthia Erivo, Dakota Johnson, Jon Hamm, and Chris Hemsworth.
On a long-awaited trip to Europe, a New York City cop (Adam Sandler) and his hairdresser wife (Jennifer Aniston) scramble to solve a baffling murder aboard a billionaire’s yacht.
In a world where people collect pocket-size monsters (Pokémon) to do battle, a boy (Justice Smith) comes across an intelligent monster (Ryan Reynolds) who seeks to be a detective.
Eccentric consulting detective Sherlock Holmes (Robert Downey Jr.) and Doctor John Watson (Jude Law) battle to bring down a new nemesis and unravel a deadly plot that could destroy England.
When Claire Spencer (Michelle Pfeiffer) starts hearing ghostly voices and seeing spooky images, she wonders if an otherworldly spirit is trying to contact her. All the while, her husband (Harrison Ford) tries to reassure her by telling her it’s all in her head. But as Claire investigates, she discovers that the man she loves might know more than he’s letting on.
Stephanie (Anna Kendrick), a dedicated mother and popular vlogger, befriends Emily (Blake Lively), a mysterious upper-class woman whose son Nicky attends the same school as Miles, Stephanie’s son. When Emily asks her to pick Nicky up from school and then disappears, Stephanie undertakes an investigation that will dive deep into Emily’s cloudy past.
Keller Dover (Hugh Jackman) faces a parent’s worst nightmare when his 6-year-old daughter, Anna (Erin Gerasimovich), and her friend go missing. The only lead is an old motorhome that had been parked on their street. The head of the investigation, Detective Loki (Jake Gyllenhaal), arrests the driver, but a lack of evidence forces Loki to release his only suspect. Dover, knowing that his daughter’s life is at stake, decides that he has no choice but to take matters into his own hands.
After Regina Lampert (Audrey Hepburn) falls for the dashing Peter Joshua (Cary Grant) on a skiing holiday in the French Alps, she discovers upon her return to Paris that her husband has been murdered. Soon, she and Peter are giving chase to three of her late husband’s World War II cronies, Tex (James Coburn), Scobie (George Kennedy) and Gideon (Ned Glass), who are after a quarter of a million dollars the quartet stole while behind enemy lines. But why does Peter keep changing his name?
World War II soldier-turned-U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) investigates the disappearance of a patient from a hospital for the criminally insane, but his efforts are compromised by troubling visions and a mysterious doctor (Ben Kingsley).
Directed by Robert Altman, in 1930’s England, a group of pretentious rich and famous gather together for a weekend of relaxation at a hunting resort. But when a murder occurs, each one of these interesting characters becomes a suspect.
Kermit and Fozzie are newspaper reporters sent to London to interview Lady Holiday (Diana Rigg), a wealthy fashion designer whose priceless diamond necklace is stolen. Kermit meets and falls in love with her secretary, Miss Piggy. The jewel thieves strike again, and this time frame Miss Piggy. It’s up to Kermit and Muppets to bring the real culprits to justice.
With his wife’s (Rosamund Pike) disappearance having become the focus of an intense media circus, a man (Ben Affleck) sees the spotlight turned on him when it’s suspected that he may not be innocent.
A private eye (Ryan Gosling) and a thug (Russell Crowe) investigate the apparent suicide of a fading porn star in 1970s Los Angeles and uncovers a conspiracy.
This English-language adaptation of the Swedish novel by Stieg Larsson follows a disgraced journalist, Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig), as he investigates the disappearance of a weary patriarch’s niece from 40 years ago. He is aided by the pierced, tattooed, punk computer hacker named Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara). As they work together in the investigation, Blomkvist and Salander uncover immense corruption beyond anything they have ever imagined.
Two homicide detectives are on a desperate hunt for a serial killer (Kevin Spacey) whose crimes are based on the “seven deadly sins” in this dark and haunting film that takes viewers from the tortured remains of one victim to the next. The seasoned Det. Sommerset (Morgan Freeman) researches each sin in an effort to get inside the killer’s mind, while his novice partner, Mills (Brad Pitt), scoffs at his efforts to unravel the case.
Leonard Shelby (Guy Pearce) is tracking down the man who raped and murdered his wife. The difficulty of locating his wife’s killer, however, is compounded by the fact that he suffers from a rare, untreatable form of short-term memory loss. Although he can recall details of life before his accident, Leonard cannot remember what happened fifteen minutes ago, where he’s going, or why.
A teenage loner (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) pushes his way into the underworld of a high school crime ring to investigate the disappearance of his ex-girlfriend (Emilie de Ravin).
In 1935, when his train is stopped by deep snow, detective Hercule Poirot (Albert Finney) is called on to solve a murder that occurred in his car the night before.
A petty thief (Robert Downey Jr.) posing as an actor is brought to Los Angeles for an unlikely audition and finds himself in the middle of a murder investigation along with his high school dream girl (Michelle Monaghan) and a detective (Val Kilmer) who’s been training him for his upcoming role…
When renowned crime novelist Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer) is found dead at his estate just after his 85th birthday, the inquisitive and debonair Detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) is mysteriously enlisted to investigate. From Harlan’s dysfunctional family to his devoted staff, Blanc sifts through a web of red herrings and self-serving lies to uncover the truth behind Harlan’s untimely death.
Clue finds six colorful dinner guests (Eileen Brennan, Madeline Kahn, Christopher Lloyd, Michael McKean, Martin Mull, and Lesley Ann Warren) gathered at the mansion of their host, Mr. Boddy (Lee Ving) — who turns up dead after his secret is exposed: He was blackmailing all of them. With the killer among them, the guests and Boddy’s chatty butler (Tim Curry) must suss out the culprit before the body count rises.
For an artist whose work seems to have been inspired by a lot of unhappy feelings, Trent Reznor has enjoyed a tremendous amount of success. The musician and artist established himself in the late 1980s and 90s with the singular and hugely influential group Nine Inch Nails, which led to becoming a producer for other artists, and eventually, an inspiration to filmmakers. Unsurprisingly, that led to a new direction for his career, composing music directly for the films of auteurs like David Fincher and Ken Burns. To commemorate his 54th birthday on May 17, Moviefone takes a look at his movie and television-related work that have become part of the pop cultural firmament.
Reznor had already become a fixture in the musical landscape by 1994 when he was hired by Oliver Stone to create a backdrop for the director’s film about a pair of serial killers who become media darlings. Though he created only one original track for the soundtrack, he produced the rest of the soundtrack album, suggesting to Stone an album that was mirrored the film’s unique editing style as a “collage of sound,” featuring everything from hip-hop to world music.
Reznor’s second produced soundtrack was for David Lynch, who enlisted him to weave together a score by longtime Lynch composer Angelo Badalamenti with classic bossa nova, electro industrial rock, and of course a handful of tracks from the NIN frontman himself, including the stone cold classic “The Perfect Drug” (which Reznor finally started performing live just recently).
It was almost a decade and a half before Reznor ventured into proper film composition, sparking a collaboration with creative confederate Atticus Ross that would continue throughout the rest of his career. Juggling moody ambient pieces with more propulsive, dance floor adjacent tracks, he captures the feverish energy of Fincher’s story of how Mark Zuckerberg created Facebook.
Reznor wasted no time jumping right back into an incredibly fruitful partnership with Fincher on his adaptation of Stieg Larsson’s bestseller of the same name. In the same family as his “Social Network” score but decidedly more ominous, Reznor’s music provided the perfect accompaniment for this twisted, sometimes violently sadistic murder mystery.
Reznor’s third score for Fincher is, like the film it accompanies, an exercise in misdirection, as the perspectives of Nick (Ben Affleck) and Amy Dunne (Rosamund Pike) fight to tell a fractured truth. Reznor’s textured, ambient music evokes the likes of Brian Eno as he hints at both a fairytale romance and a brutally dysfunctional marriage.
Peter Berg’s film about the Boston Marathon bombing needed little emotional amplification from a score, which may account for why Reznor’s themes are much lighter and more delicate than some of his other work. He nevertheless captures the haunting loss of that tragic incident and the chaos that ensued in its wake.
PBS
“The Vietnam War” (2017)
Ken Burns’ documentaries are always so thoughtful and detailed that they require the exact right music to make them a riveting experience. Drawing not upon the music of the era but his own instincts, Reznor and Ross offer some thoughtful melancholy music to represent the political morass that America got itself into, and eventually, the personal tragedy of lives destroyed and lost as a consequence of the country’s crisis of leadership.
A24
“Mid90s” (2018) – Reznor only created a handful of tracks for Jonah Hill’s directorial debut (totally around 15 minutes), the story of a skateboarding-obsessed kid who comes of age among his peers. Reznor skillfully flirts with a sense of limitless optimism and also the melancholy onset of maturity as Hill’s protagonist goes through formative moments that prepare him for adulthood — sometimes way before he should be ready.
Director Susanne Bier does an incredible job making this Sandra Bullock film’s premise — a force that makes people go insane and commit suicide — feel believable and real. But it’s Reznor and Ross’ work on the score that solidifies the increasingly unsettling feeling audiences have as they discover what’s happening, and are forced to watch Bullock’s character try and figure out how to fight back against an enemy that she cannot see and doesn’t know how to defeat.
This weekend’s “Unforgettable,” a rousing, surprisingly complex suspense movie that stars Katherine Heigl, Rosario Dawson, and Geoff Stults, is one of those “scream at the screen” tales of terribly hurt feelings and delicious revenge. (There was a happy hour before my screening so the yelling was particularly pointed.) The film also fits squarely into the mold of the psychosexual thriller, a genre defined largely by blood, boobs, and betrayal. So when we got to sit down with the cast of the film (along with director and producer Denise Di Novi), we thought we’d play a little game of psychosexual thriller trivia (really rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it?)
Watch to find out who is absolutely killer and who just doesn’t make the cut (and go see “Unforgettable,” in theaters this Friday).
[SPOILERS: Do not read this interview if you have yet to see the movie.]
In “The Girl on the Train,” Luke Evans plays an overly-possessive husband who becomes a key suspect when his wife [Haley Bennett] goes missing. And from there, things go to a very plot-twisty place, rather quickly.
Evans rang up Moviefone to discuss his potentially infamous shower scene in the movie and what it’s like to play the bad guy.
Moviefone:Did you base your characterization on any real person who’s been suspected of doing away with their wife, like Scott Peterson?
Luke Evans: No, I didn’t base it on anybody specifically, but I did do research into real-life situations where a loved one has disappeared or gone missing — and you find they’ve been murdered and then everybody’s a suspect and the family are taken in for questioning. That happens quite often around the world, you see it in the news all the time. So that was interesting stuff for me to do some research on.
What kind of research did you do? Watching news footage of specific cases?
Yeah, exactly. I watched news footage and some documentaries on the ones I knew of in the U.K. There was one very famous one of a family who’d lost their daughter and they were for a while suspected of maybe being the reason for her going missing, but obviously they weren’t in the end. My next question is about your shower scene. It’s not quite as revealing as Ben Affleck‘s in “Gone Girl,” but still, did that give you pause?
You’re right, it’s not as revealing as Ben’s, but it was revealing enough for me, thank you very much. But I think it was important because you realize that Megan and Scott don’t actually speak to each other in the whole film. Everything is just told visually. There was a lot that needed to be presented to the audience so they got a well-rounded idea of the relationship and it wasn’t just an argumentative, tempestuous relationship. There was much more to it as well. They were passionate as well as extremely volatile.
So is it more awkward being naked with someone else in a movie than just being naked by yourself?
It can be very awkward, but Haley Bennett’s a professional. She’s a trouper. She threw herself into it, and so did I, and we knew we just had to get on and do this. You have to be committed to something like that, otherwise, the second you think it’s ridiculous -– which, obviously, it is ridiculous when you think about it –- it becomes very uncomfortable. Tate Taylor, the director, was fantastic. We actually got quite drunk the first time we had to do it, just to take away the nerves, which is quite funny. So we were quite tipsy by the time we got to do the scene. [Laughs]
You also played a not very nice guy earlier this year in “High-Rise.” Is it more fun to play villains?
No one is very nice in that film. No one’s quintessentially, perfectly nice, they always have a flaw so I think that even with bad, nasty characters, they can’t always be nasty. How did they get to that place? I like to think that through so you get a full-rounded idea of a human being and not just a monster.
Would you prefer to make more thrillers or more musicals?
I’d like to do more comedy! I like smiling and laughing. I like making people laugh. I got a bit of a bug when I did the Gaston character, it was so much fun, so I wouldn’t mind trying a bit more of that.
Do you have a dream comedy role?
Anything that Melissa McCarthy is in, I’d like to do, because I think she’s absolutely hilarious.
Watching a thriller before bed is rarely a good idea, but it’s always fun: Snuggled up on the couch under a blanket, shivering with horror and delight — then being unable to get up and turn the light on — because what if something grabs you?
But no matter how much these films convince people of monsters under the bed or serial killers in the closet, thrillers can be addictive. It’s like being on a roller coaster — scary as hell while it’s happening but you know when the ride ends, everything is going to be alright.
So which movies should you really avoid before bedtime? These thrillers not only scared the pants off people but killed it (so to speak) at the box office, too. Not only that, but every movie on this list received critical acclaim and award nominations. The standout star is, of course, “The Silence of the Lambs,” which won the “big five” Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Adapted Screenplay. The only other two movies to have done this are “It Happened One Night” (1934) and “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” (1975).
1. ‘Fatal Attraction’ (1987)
Remember that scene in “Sleepless In Seattle” when Tom Hanks uses “Fatal Attraction” as an example of why it’s not a good idea to randomly date strange women? “It scared the shit out of me! It scared the shit out of every man in America!” his character, Sam Baldwin, tells his son. And he was right — the movie did scare the living daylights out of every man, woman, child, and probably pet, in America. Glenn Close‘s bunny-boiling lunatic who’s obsessed with Michael Douglas has turned out to be one of the most enduring villains in cinematic history. On the plus side, lots of people probably thought twice about cheating on their significant other after that movie.
2. ‘The Sixth Sense’ (1999)
There are ghost stories, and then there’s “The Sixth Sense,” a box office smash with one of the most jaw-dropping story twists of all time. Haley Joel Osment is heartbreaking as the little boy being relentlessly harassed by ghosts who want to use him as a sort of telephone line to their loved ones. Apparently, decades of being deceased haven’t helped these stubborn spooks realize kids don’t respond well to pushy, horrendous-looking apparitions who randomly show up in the middle of the night. Bruce Willis is wonderfully somber as the child psychiatrist who — well, let’s stop there, just in case you haven’t seen it yet. Be prepared for graphic, violent imagery to stay with you well into the night.
3. ‘Gone Girl’ (2014)
Ben Affleck has been a very naughty boy. No, this isn’t a reference to his real-life marital strife, but to his on-screen spousal troubles in “Gone Girl.” In this gloriously twisted movie, Ben is a husband accused of murdering wife Rosamund Pike, who turns out to not be what she seems. This is a movie with no clear-cut heroes and villains, so it’s tough to know who to root for — although that’s also what makes this dark thriller so much fun to watch.
4. ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ (2011)
Nordic noir has become very popular lately (think “Wallander”), and “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” doesn’t disappoint fans of the genre. A remake of the 2009 Swedish original, Rooney Mara and Daniel Craig are riveting in this chilling movie about a girl who goes missing and the people who try to find her decades later. This is not a cheerful movie — it’s explicitly violent and often hard to watch, even for a thriller. Save it for an evening when you’ve already spent all day listening to Radiohead, so you’re mentally prepared for the bleakness.
5. ‘The Silence of the Lambs’ (1991)
Arguably one of the top 10 thrillers of all time, “The Silence of the Lambs” is brilliant, gruesome, captivating, and utterly terrifying. Jodie Foster‘s Agent Clarice Starling and Anthony Hopkins‘ Hannibal Lecter have become firmly entrenched in modern pop culture, as has Ted Levine in his chilling turn as Jame “It rubs the lotion on its skin” Gumb. This movie is about a serial killer who murders women for his own deviant purposes, and another serial killer helping an FBI agent track him down. So in other words, a perfect bedtime choice — if you never want to sleep again, that is.
Sources
Silence of the Lambs: 25 Years Later, the Film Is Still a Pop Culture Phenomenon
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It’s been five years since the release of “The Social Network” (on October 1, 2010), and it still feels like David Fincher was robbed of the Oscar.
His account of the birth pangs of Facebook was a movie about the way we live now, structured in a way that suited its cautionary tale about the elusiveness of truth in a system overstuffed with information. At the Academy Awards, however, Fincher’s film went up for Best Picture against “The King’s Speech,” a perfectly good but thoroughly conventional Oscar-bait movie (British period costume drama, World War II setting, protagonist who triumphs despite a handicap) and lost.
For all the popularity of his movies, Fincher seems doomed to being seen as ahead of his time. His films seem to recognize that we’re drowning in more information than we can handle, and he seems bent on forging a visual style and editing rhythm that will help rewire our brains to handle the overload. In honor of the film’s fifth anniversary, here’s a ranking of every Fincher movie.
Many of us had no idea who Emily Ratajkowski was until told she was the featured brunette in Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines” video. She got special attention in the topless version and then suddenly had roles in “Gone Girl,”“Entourage” and “We Are Your Friends.” But there’s a lot more to Emily than just a sexy figure, and in her new cover story with InStyleUK she clearly tries to distance herself from the controversial video:
I wasn’t into the idea at all at first. I think I came off as a bit annoyed in the video. Now, it’s the bane of my existence. When anyone comes up to me about Blurred Lines, I’m like, are we seriously talking about a video from three years ago?”
Yep, we seriously are. Because boobs. America loves and shames boobs in equal measure. On that note, Emily added:
It’s weird to me that the reaction to a woman’s naked body is so controversial in our culture. My mum taught me to never apologize for my sexuality. My dad never made me feel embarrassed. I also don’t think I’ve ever had an awareness of my own body as being super-sexual. It was always just my body.”
Her desire to be acknowledged for more than that body is completely understandable, but the visibility from “Blurred Lines” did seem to propel her onto the Hollywood scene. The video may be the bane of her existence but it may also be the reason for her current film career existence.
[SPOILERS: Do not read this interview if you have yet to see the movie.]
My next question is about your shower scene. It’s not quite as revealing as 
Watching a thriller before bed is rarely a good idea, but it’s always fun: Snuggled up on the couch under a blanket, shivering with horror and delight — then being unable to get up and turn the light on — because what if something grabs you?
Many of us had no idea who