The six years between Gone Girl and Mank is the longest David Fincher has gone between films. This is unacceptable, as the Oscar-nominated filmmaker is incapable of making a bad movie (even The Curious Case of Benjamin Button has its moments), but also understandable, considering he was busy with Mindhunter in the years between.
Fincher served as the unofficial showrunner for season one of Mindhunter, but when the scripts came in for season two, “I ended up looking at what was written and deciding I didn’t like any of it. So we tossed it and started over,” he told Vulture. “I brought in Courtenay Miles, an AD I’d worked with who wanted to write, and she ended up co-showrunning Mindhunter.” That lightened the load, but it was still 90-hour work weeks (“When I got done, I was pretty exhausted”), and there was another issue: the budget.
“Listen, for the viewership that it had, it was an expensive show. We talked about ‘Finish Mank and then see how you feel,’ but I honestly don’t think we’re going to be able to do it for less than I did season two. And on some level, you have to be realistic about dollars have to equal eyeballs.”
When asked by Vulture about a possible third season, a Netflix representative said, “Maybe in five years.” That’s still a shorter amount of time than between Gone Girl and Mank, which premieres on the streaming service on December 4.
(Via Vulture)
