David Fincher has been attached to enough titles that either someone else ended up making or they got stuck in development hell and still haven’t seen the light of day that there’s an entire Wikipedia page for the director’s “unrealized projects.” He was going to direct The Avengers (this one, not that one), for instance, until Jeremiah S. Chechik took over. He’s also been varying degrees of attached to Blade, Catch Me If You Can, Spider-Man, and Mission: Impossible III, all of which were handed to another filmmaker. The alternate-timeline of where his career could have gone extends to television, including the brilliant limited series The Terror and the pilot episode of Deadwood.
Will an American remake of Netflix‘s Squid Game — yes, that Squid Game, as if there’s another — be next? Or will it join his realized projects?
Here’s everything we know about David Fincher’s Squid Game.
Plot
Last year, Hollywood insider Jeff Sneider reported that Netflix was “courting” Fincher to produce and direct an American remake of Squid Game, the streamer’s most popular series ever. “No idea whether he’s engaging, but they want him to tackle this project BADLY,” he added. Fincher has been with Netflix for over 10 years, ever since he helped develop House of Cards (Netflix’s first original series), and he recently renewed his contract until 2027. Could Squid Game fill the Mindhunter-sized hole in people’s heart?
No, because the only substitution for Mindhunter is more Mindhunter (it ain’t happening). Besides, it sounds like Fincher is focused on Squid Game, ahead of even his a Chinatown prequel series. According to The Playlist, “Fincher has been quietly working on Squid Game for the last two years or so and even has a writer working on it: British writer Dennis Kelly.”
Kelly is the creator of British series Utopia, which was supposed to get an American remake on HBO with Fincher attached as co-creator. But discussions fell apart over money (Utopia eventually ended up on Prime Video, with Gone Girl author Gillian Flynn as the lead creative voice, but it was unceremoniously canceled after one season in 2020). “I thought we had really, really good scripts and a great cast and we were getting ready to do that and you know it came down to $9 million,” Fincher explained on the Empire podcast. Could the same thing with the Squid Game remake and Netflix?
Well, first, Netflix needs to acknolwedge it’s happening. As recently as February, Netflix honcho Ted Sarandos denied the rumors. “Since the main series is still ongoing, there’s no justified reason for Netflix to do a remake,” he said. But, as reported by The Playlist, “Last we heard, Fincher was still ‘working on’ [Squid Game], but presumably, given the hard pivot away from an already completed Chinatown, it’s intended to be his next directing gig.”
I guess we’ll see!
Cast
Maybe Fincher regular Brad Pitt can play the big doll? Just spitballin’ here.
Release Date
Fincher’s Squid Game doesn’t have a release date, but the original Squid Game, the one that made Netflix a lot of money (but not the creator), will be back for season 2 later this year.
Trailer
There’s no trailer, obviously, so instead I decided to pick a scene from my favorite David Fincher movie. But then I spent 10 minutes trying to decide what is my favorite David Fincher movie (Gone Girl? The Social Network? The Killer?) before landing on Zodiac. So, here’s the best — or at least the most tense — scene from David Fincher’s best movie. I’m sure no one will disagree.