David Fincher made his return to feature filmmaking after a six-year absence with “Mank,” and it doesn’t look like he’s letting his momentum stop. The filmmaker revealed the projects he’s currently working on, including a TV series where he talks with special guests about the movies they love.
During a recent interview with Aaron Sorkin on the Director’s Guild of America’s The Director’s Cut podcast, Fincher outlined three projects currently in the works, including a “Chinatown” prequel and the aforementioned TV show. ” I am playing with adapting a French graphic novel about an assassin,” Fincher said. “I am playing with… Robert Towne and I are trying to break a limited series, sort of a prequel to ‘Chinatown.’ Jake Gittes’ time in Chinatown with Lou Escobar. And I’m working on a show about film appreciation and about movies that I love, with guests I love, about movies that they love.
Of course, we knew about most of these. Last month, it was reported that Fincher was teaming up with Michael Fassbender and “Se7en” writer Andrew Kevin Walker for “The Killer,” a film based on a French graphic novel that follows an assassin developing a conscience and doubting his work. Likewise, we heard about the “Chinatown” prequel, which will be a TV show made for Netflix, which will be co-written by Robert Towne, who also wrote the original 1974 “Chinatown.”
What’s certainly new is the idea of a TV show where David Fincher sits down with a guest to talk about movies. If you’ve seen or listened to Fincher talk about movies before, you know that the man knows his cinema and can talk shop for hours without it ever being boring. Out of the three, this actually seems like the most exciting project just because of how rare and needed this kind of curation is in the streaming era. With so many new movies coming and going without much fanfare, this could be like Fincher’s Master Class, and that sounds delightful.