Fight Club and Zodiac director David Fincher hasn’t made a movie since 2014’s Gone Girl, but it looks like the guy has finally found a new project—all thanks to his, uh, dad. According to the Hollywood Reporter, Fincher is teaming up with Netflix for his next film, Mank, based on a script by Fincher’s own father, Jack. Cute!
The upcoming film will be a black and white biopic about the life of Herman “Mank” Mankiewicz, the 1920s journalist who moved to Hollywood, met Orson Welles, and wound up penning the screenplay for Citizen Kane with him. Mankiewicz famously fought with Welles over their collaboration, and Welles supposedly even tried to strong-arm the screenwriter into giving him sole credit, but Mankiewicz refused. Gary Oldman is on board to play Mankiewicz himself.
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Fincher and his dad, who was a journalist, had reportedly been kicking around Mank for decades. Fincher was originally going to make the thing in the late 1990s, but he wound up doing Fight Club instead, which went on to pull in an Oscar nomination and inspire a generation of stupid dudes who completely missed the satire of the movie.
Fincher’s father died in 2003 without ever seeing his script make it to screen, but the director apparently didn’t give up on Mank. Netflix seems like the perfect place for the long-gestating film to finally find a home, since Fincher and Netflix have already had huge successes with Mindhunter and House of Cards, both of which Fincher executive produced and helped direct. This will be his first feature for the streaming service, though.
Plus, between this and Scorcese’s bizarre, de-aged gangster flick, it seems like Netflix is continuing its new strategy of just dumping money onto directors to fund the passion projects they might not be able to get through a major studio. Is their next move funding Paul Thomas Anderson’s ten-hour epic starring Tiffany Haddish or whatever? We can dream.
