MovieChat Forums > David Fincher Discussion > He hasn't directed a feature film in fiv...

He hasn't directed a feature film in five years


WTF?

The last film he made was Gone Girl and that was in 2014. Since then the only thing he's done is direct a handful of episodes of Mindhunter for Netflix.

What's up with that? I've been a fan since the early days of Se7en and The Game and tend to love his movies. He's one of the top directors in Hollywood today and he's barely working.

C'mon David, make some fucking movies!

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If he comes back with something as good as Zodiac, it will have been worth the wait.

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I do agree that Zodiac is one of his better films.

I'd say that Fincher's top-tier films would be:

Se7en
The Game
Fight Club
Zodiac
The Social Network

The rest aren't quite on the same level, quality-wise, though I don't think he's ever made an outright bad film.

As you say, hopefully the wait will be worth it when he finally does get back in the director's chair.

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I'd say that Fincher's top-tier films would be:

Se7en
The Game
Fight Club
Zodiac
The Social Network

The rest aren't quite on the same level, quality-wise, though I don't think he's ever made an outright bad film.

You must not have seen Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.

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I've seen every Fincher film.

Dragon Tattoo was pretty good but I wouldn't put it amongst his very best work. Admittedly, it's possible the film would've had more impact if I had not seen the previous Swedish adaptation and already been familiar with the story. As it stands though, while I enjoyed it, I wasn't blown away like I was with many of his previous movies.

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Fair enough. I'm fascinated with different opinions on films. Me, I've watched it at least 300 times. I think it's nearly flawless.

You may find this interesting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNyJGHDKBng&t=64s

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That was interesting. Good find. I can appreciate the time and effort that went into making that vid.

I'm not sure I entirely agree with his conclusions, though. I admit it may very well be because it was the version I saw first, but I remember walking out of the Fincher version and thinking that, while good, it was not as good as the Swedish version.

While it's been so long now since I've seen either version that I can't remember much in the way of specifics, watching that video I am thinking that this is less a discussion of which version is better (as he asserts) but rather a matter of preference. The Swedish version, I think, is more naturalistic and grounded; the Fincher version, by comparison, is more Hollywood, more stylized, more melodramatic.

At the end of the day, both films are very good. If anything, the real story here is Niels Oplev crafting a film that is arguably equal to Fincher's (if not better, as many would say) with only 1/7 of the money. That's amazing!

It's a shame that Fincher did not follow up with a sequel though, because I never saw any of the Swedish sequels and therefore it would've been an entirely fresh experience with no expectations based on previous movies.

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Zodiac is one of the films of the century, in my opinion.
And it came after a break from features. So I'm hoping the pattern is repeated.

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You got me curious so I had to look. You're right, Zodiac came after a five year hiatus.

I wonder why he took so much time off. I wonder if he was putting so much effort into researching for Zodiac or if it was because he just wanted to take a break.

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There's a good video on youtube that covers what Fincher did leading up to Zodiac. Commercials and music videos - getting to grips with new (at the time) digital tools. Inappropriate

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I'd like to surf the net one day soon and be greeted with the news that Fincher has signed up to direct a new Alien movie.. or maybe a Star Wars or Batman

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That would be weird. I know he did Alien 3 but he seems to have moved on to very different pastures at this point.

I remember Aaron Sorkin was saying something about a Social Network sequel a while back, just because there has been so much that's happened with Zuckerberg and Facebook since 2010. I think that would be interesting.

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Lots of big directors go back to their SF roots as a way of sort of breaking into the mainstream again with a movie that will get everyone interested/excited (GLucas, Ridley Scott, Spielberg). But its unlikely Alien would happen with Fincher again as he had such a terrible experience with Fox on A3 .. then again its not impossible he might want to get it right if say Disney now approached him and let him do whatever he wanted etc but its unlikely

I forgot to mention Fight Club 2 - theres a comic sequel written by the writer of FC that I guess could be adapted with Pitt/Norton.. id much rather he did that over anything else.. and maybe Fight Club would be a bigger hit since the movies a cult thing with 'first rule is..' etc that's became part of the culture

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Well it would be interesting. From time to time he'll do something a little different, like Benjamin Button, but mostly he seems to like telling dark and brooding tales about crime.

What I think would be interesting would be a David Fincher western. Now that would be something to see. He could still do his usual crime thing but place it in the Old West.

Either that or do something totally different, like Marty Scorsese's sojourn into the world of family films with the underrated Hugo.

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Looks like he has been tied up with the TV series. Which I personally find disappointing, but oh well.

This is odd but it just dawned on me I still think of him as a young and emerging director with most of his work ahead of him, yet he will be 60 two years from now. (2 1/2 for you hair splitters out there)

IOW perhaps he is at the age where he wants to start scaling back.

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Not sure I still regarded him as an up-and-comer but I definitely didn't realize he was almost 60. That is strange to think about. It's weird how people in the entertainment business can just kind of get stuck in time in our minds. That's happened to me with actors several times, especially ones who have fallen out of the spotlight.

As for scaling back, I'm not sure about that. I mean, I guess the results speak for themselves, but look at guys like Ron Howard (65), Scorsese (76), Spielberg (72) and Clint Eastwood (89!). They are still going very strong and probably won't stop until the Reaper forces them to. Hell, that's exactly what happened to Robert Altman and Sidney Lumet. Only death could drive them from behind the movie camera.

It seems to me that filmmakers in general, whether we're talking about directors or producers or actors, more often than not don't stop on their own. They are driven to do what they do.

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You thought Gone Girl, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and The Social Network were boring?

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