David Fincher making new western movie for Netflix
For years, David Fincher has been working on projects with Netflix, notably acting as a director and showrunner on the popular series Mindhunter. His deal with the streaming service will show him allegedly taking on a western film called Bitterroot.
Besides his work on various series available on the streamer – he has also acted as an executive producer and director on House of Cards and Love, Death, and Robots – Fincher has made several movies in collaboration with Netflix.
In 2020, he made a biographical drama, Mank, which centres around the Citizen Kane screenwriter Herman J Mankiewicz. In 2023, he cast Michael Fassbender as a Smiths-loving assassin in the thriller The Killer.
Now, he will try his hand at his first western, which marks a change from Fincher’s usual choice of a thriller. Still, a director as accomplished as Fincher will surely do just fine entering entirely new genre territory.
The film was reportedly written by Michael Gilio, who recently penned Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. However, his ideas for the upcoming film aren’t new; he wrote the screenplay back in 2008, calling it Big Hole. It has taken a long time for the script to receive a director; it was shopped around in 2011, but plans for it to be adapted fell through.
Bitterroot does not have a cast attached just yet, but it concerns an old rancher who must do whatever it takes to regain all of the money he’s had stolen from him – even if that means resorting to robbing banks and committing various other crimes. Meanwhile, the sheriff – who happens to be his son – must track his father down.
As it stands, that’s all that is known about the project so far, as the wait continues to hear Netflix confirm the news and tease a release date and other details. Meanwhile, Fincher will be working on some other titles for Netflix, which have been rumoured for a while.
The Gone Girl and The Social Network director is reportedly working on a Chinatown prequel with the film’s original screenwriter, Robert Towne. The original, released in 1974, was directed by Roman Polanski and remained a classic.
There is also a chance that Fincher will be directing Squid Game: America, taking inspiration from the original South Korean series that became a worldwide sensation upon its release in 2021.