David Fincher made his directorial debut on the third Alien movie, and he had such a torrid experience that he’s actively avoided franchise fare ever since. He did flirt with the idea on a couple of occasions, most notably Mission: Impossible III, but the closest he’s come in three decades was when it looked like he might helm the sequel to Brad Pitt’s World War Z.
The filmmaker and actor have been close friends for a very long time, which would go some way to explaining why the notoriously driven and meticulous Fincher would even consider signing on to helm the follow up to somebody else’s movie, one that suffered from extensive rewrites and reshoots in an attempt to hammer it into serviceable shape prior to release.
Buried in a new report from The Playlist detailing Tilda Swinton’s involvement in Fincher’s upcoming Netflix thriller The Killer is the nugget of information that the Seven and Mank director considered reviving World War Z 2 before he settled on the graphic novel adaptation as his next feature.
Paramount own the rights to the property, but they’ve been willing to work with Netflix in the past as The Trial of the Chicago 7 and The Lovebirds showed last year, while The Killer was originally set up at the studio with Fincher as far back as 2007. Ultimately, Fincher didn’t pull the trigger on World War Z, but it’s fascinating to think he was weighing it up as recently as last year, half a decade after first signing on.