Director David Fincher is set to be a busy man. This week, it's been announced that he's going to be directing the movie version of Gone Girl, based on the book by Gillian Flynn. That's due to start production this year, and that in turn has raised question marks over a couple of other films on Fincher's slate.
Firstly, then, The Girl Who Played With Fire. The second English language movie based on Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy was supposed to follow The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo a little quicker than it has done. However, there was a reported dispute over Daniel Craig's payday for the second movie, although Sony spent a decent amount of cash on a screenplay from Steven Zaillian. That screenplay has now been reworked by Andrew Kevin Walker, and IndieWire reports that the script is now nearly done. Furthermore, it looks likely that Sony will sign Craig's check.
But there's an inevitable problem. Daniel Craig is committed to start shooting James Bond 24 towards the end of next year, and he's in a play on Broadway through until early January. That means that The Girl Who Played With Fire will need to shoot early in 2014 to fit in, and that's likely to clash with Gone Girl. As such, it seems all but certain that David Fincher won't be directing the movie.
Nor will he be directing the long-in-development 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea for Disney. That project is one he apparently left some time ago, and the issue there was over who could star in what would be an expensive movie. The likes of Brad Pitt, Daniel Craig and Matt Damon all turned down the project, with a near-six month shoot in Australia one of the reported reasons. Meanwhile, Channing Tatum and Chris Hemsworth's names were also mentioned, but Fincher ultimately left the movie. It remains in development, but also in some degree of limbo. Given that the pricetag is in the $200m region for the movie, don't be surprised if it remains in limbo for some time.
The Fincher project we most want progress on is Heavy Metal, an animated movie he was making with Tim Miller that ultimately hit the buffers. One day, we hope, it might just be resurrected...
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