At the beginning of the year, word emerged that David Fincher‘s “Gone Girl,” based on the best-seller by Gillian Flynn, would throw fans for a loop by switching up the ending. “Ben [Affleck] was so shocked by it. He would say, ‘This is a whole new third act! She literally threw that third act out and started from scratch,’ ” the author herself told EW at the time. But hitting a Reddit AMA today, she tempered her comments a bit.
Asked by a fan about changing the book for the movie, Flynn said it was more a matter of adapting the story to make it work on the big screen. “….those reports have been greatly exaggerated! Of course, the script has to be different from the book in some ways—you have to find a way to externalize all those internal thoughts and you have to do more with less room and you just don’t have room for everything,” she explained. “But the mood, tone and spirit of the book are very much intact. I’ve been very involved in the film and loved it.”
“Working with David Fincher is pretty much the best place to start for a screenwriter,” she continued. “Screenwriting definitely works different parts of your brain than writing a novel. I do love that with novels, you can really sprawl out—it feels quite decadent. With screenwriting, you have to justify every choice. It’s a nice discipline, but definitely not decadent.”
It’s certainly an interesting change from “she literally threw that third act out” and those comments will likely keep fans of the book guessing. As for the rest of us, we’ll just patiently wait until October 3rd to see how the mystery unfolds.
I thought the whole book was lame. Well, what I could read of it. I couldn't even get a quarter of the way through the thing as I thought it was so silly and lame. As the person below states that the ending was lame, glad I didn't waste my time trying to even get there. From the beginning on it was lame. Haven't been able to understand why Fincher would want to to do thing or why so many people liked the book. Of course, I thought and still do, that the Harry Potter books were lame so I'm not of the masses for sure!…lol…
Well, darn. I was hoping the ending would be really different. I got to the end of the book and said, "Wait, what? That's it?!" It was so lame. Almost like a Dean Koontz book, where it just builds and builds, then just ends. I have this as an ebook , and was wondering if I'd missed a few pages there at the end. So disappointing.