Five years since Gone Girl? And still no new movie? How come, David Fincher?
The memes pining the film director’s absence can finally be put to rest, as the beloved David Fincher has finally announced details about his upcoming film. Fincher, whose impressive filmography includes Se7en, Fight Club, Zodiac and The Social Network, will mark his return to form with Mank, a biopic about the Citizen Kane screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz. The project has been in the works for over a decade, as it will be based on a script written by Fincher’s father who died in 2003.
Fresh from his Academy Award-winning performance as Winston Churchill in Darkest Hour, Gary Oldman is set to star as the Hollywood legend. Though it isn’t yet clear what format the film will take, one can only hope that Fincher won’t produce a formulaic biopic like those currently saturating the film industry – though if his handling of The Social Network is anything to go by, we shouldn’t have anything to worry about.
Mankiewicz, who died in 1953 aged 55, is best known for co-writing the script for Citizen Kane with Orson Welles – whom he later feuded with over who wrote what – as well as “fixing” other Golden Age Hollywood scripts, often uncredited, with flashes of recognisable “Mankiewicz humour.”
Mank will be shot in black-and-white, perhaps in homage to Mankiewicz’s own films, and production will begin in November 2019. Fincher is the most recent high-profile director to make a deal for his film to be distributed by Netflix.
Words by Steph Green