Venice Film Festival: Why David Fincher Wanted Michael Fassbender to Look ‘Dorky’

THE PROJECTIONIST

Movies are full of glamorous hit men. For “The Killer,” the director put his star in a bucket hat: “The $3,000 suit seems like it’s played out.”

By Kyle Buchanan
Reporting from Venice, Italy
September 3, 2023
The New York Times

It’s been 24 years since David Fincher brought one of his movies to the Venice Film Festival, and the last time, things didn’t go so well.

“I came here with a little film called ‘Fight Club’” in 1999, he told me during an interview on the Lido this week. “We were fairly run out of town for being fascists.” Even before the premiere of that controversial Brad Pitt flick, the director could sense trouble. “I looked down and the youngest person in our row was Giorgio Armani,” Fincher said. “I was like, ‘I’m not sure the guest list is the right guest list for this.’”

So what makes lofty Venice the right place to premiere “The Killer,” Fincher’s new thriller and his first film since the Oscar-winning Hollywood drama “Mank”?

“Nothing,” cracked Fincher. “Venice seems like it’s very highbrow — important movies about important subjects — and then there’s our skeevy little movie.”

Still, Fincher has always enjoyed toying with people’s expectations. He does it even within the world of “The Killer,” which premiered in Venice on Sunday and stars Fassbender as a hired gun who has to improvise after a fatal assignment goes awry.

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