Category: Projects

Script Apart: “The Killer” with Andrew Kevin Walker

Al Horner
November 17, 2023
Script Apart

Stick to the plan. Anticipate, don’t improvise. Trust no one. Never yield an advantage. Fight only the battle you’re paid to fight… and if you can do all that while listening to The Smiths, even better. That’s the mantra of the eponymous assassin at the heart of The Killer, directed by David Fincher and written by our guest today – the fantastic Andrew Kevin Walker.

The Killer is a movie that deconstructs the hitman movie genre like Michael Fassbender’s glassy-eyed gun-for-hire deconstructing a McDonald’s sandwich on a park bench in Paris. It opens with a blaze of images that tease the explosive action typical of these films then swerves in a different direction. The result is defiantly meditative two hours in which the violence of the movie’s revenge plot following a botched assassination is almost incidental to the character’s meticulous ways and detached observations about the world.

It’s an absolutely riveting watch but then again, what did we expect? Unlike The Killer, who misses his target early on in the film, sparking the film’s descent into chaos, Andrew and Fincher rarely miss their mark whenever they work together. The pair first teamed up on 1995’s Se7en, which began life as a spec script that Andrew wrote after moving to New York from suburban Pennsylvania. Since then, Andrew’s taken passes at Fight Club and The Game for Fincher, on top of his solo adventures in Hollywood, penning films like Sleepy Hollow and 2022’s excellent Windfall.

In the spoiler conversation you’re about to hear, Andy answers our questions about the subtle commentary on materialist culture woven into the film. We get into the influence of the novelist Somerset Maugham on Andy’s work and break some of the film’s most intriguing moments, including its enigmatic ending – in which a life is spared but existential questions are left looming.

Listen to the podcast:

Script Apart
Apple Podcasts
Spotify
Amazon Music
Google Podcasts

Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek.

Follow Script Apart on Twitter and Instagram. Support for this episode comes from ScreenCraft and WeScreenplay. To get ad-free episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon.

David Fincher: “I haven’t seen Fight Club in 20 years. And I don’t want to”

Best known for grisly thrillers like Seven and Fight Club, the director speaks to GQ about The Killer, his new hitman revenge movie with a blackly comic twist.

Jack King
October 25, 2023
GQ (UK)

He might not like it, but David Fincher has something of a reputation. It goes back to those Seven days — even before. He’s infamously exacting, requiring his actors to perform endless takes. Sometimes, well into the triple-digits. Rumour has it that Jake Gyllenhaal is still scarred.

In the 61-year-old’s latest movie, The Killer, Michael Fassbender portrays a meticulous hitman who obsesses over every… single… detail. He, like his movie’s director, is exhaustive. Exhaustingly so. He’ll take days on a job. He narrates the virtues of patience like a self-help tape stuck on repeat. Sound familiar? Some critics think so, detecting a whiff of self-deprecation in the air.

It seems a totally reasonable, and legitimate, observation. But does Fincher see the parallel? “No,” he tells GQ. “But I can see why the weak-minded…” He stops himself from finishing that sentence with a wry chuckle. Maybe he’s getting softer.

In many ways, The Killer is natural territory for this maestro of the macabre, best known to most for his grislier thrillers — not least Seven, his they-didn’t-get-it-at-the-time masterwork Zodiac, and the prematurely canned Netflix psychodrama Mindhunter. (Oh, and a bloody-knuckled little ‘90s flick called Fight Club.)

Nevertheless, it’s a sharp left-turn from his last feature, the deeply personal Citizen Kane biography Mank, which was written by his dad Jack, who passed away in 2003. “I’ve always liked B-movies,” Fincher says of the shift to this relatively restrained genre exercise. “And Fight Club to Panic Room, what’s that about? I don’t know, it’s kind of where your interests take you. And I spend a lot of time developing three or four things for every one thing I end up doing.”

The result is an eminently re-watchable revenge movie, morbid and sardonic and wickedly funny, the latter of which hasn’t been highlighted nearly enough in early press. Think John Wick, if Keanu Reeves was a sociopath with a penchant for bucket hats, Amazon and inadvertently xenophobic quips about Germans. Oh, and if he loved The Smiths. Especially “How Soon is Now.”

In a hotel room on one of October’s last sunny days, Fincher spoke to GQ all about The Killer, his feelings about AI, and why one of his (many) canned projects would’ve been “a lot” like The Last of Us

Read the full interview

Script Apart: Gillian Flynn (Gone Girl, Sharp Objects)

Al Horner
October 22, 2023
Script Apart

Gillian Flynn is an author, screenwriter and showrunner who delights in writing what she calls “bad women” – fascinatingly flawed female characters who she grants the freedom to kill, lie, harm and harass in a way that sometimes ruffles feathers. Take her 2012 novel Gone Girl, for example, which she later adapted into a smash hit movie with David Fincher. That murder-mystery tale of a marriage steeped in deceit captivated the world and sparked near-endless conversation about the poison and/or empowerment of its main character, Amy Dunne.

That novel and movie – released within two years of each other – didn’t just make Flynn a literary darling. It also catapulted her to the summit of film and TV. In 2018, she co-wrote the brilliant Widows with Steve McQueen, and adapted her first novel, Sharp Objects, into a gloriously slow-burning limited series starring Amy Adams. Since then, she’s won cult acclaim for her streaming adaptation of Utopia, the British Channel 4 series.

In the conversation you’re about to hear, we ask Gillian how she pens her captivating characters and the social importance of allowing women to run riot on-screen and in her novels, the way that male anti-heroes are frequently permitted to do. She reflects on the accusations of misogyny that her work attracted from some female writers in the aftermath of Gone Girl’s release and reveals an alternative ending to that story that would have taken the tale of Nick and Amy Dunne in an entirely different direction.

Listen to the podcast:

Script Apart
Apple Podcasts
Spotify
Amazon Music
Google Podcasts

Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek.

Follow Script Apart on Twitter and Instagram. Support for this episode comes from ScreenCraft and WeScreenplay. To get ad-free episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon.

Looking for Assets for the Official “Fight Club” 25th Anniversary Book

An official “Fight Club” 25th Anniversary book is in the making.

And the process of gathering assets to be scanned or photographed has begun:

  • Behind-the-scenes photos
  • Crew photos
  • Production drawings
  • Costumes
  • Props
  • Memorabilia
  • Other supplemental items

Were you a crew member, or did you participate in the making of the film?

Are you a movie props and memorabilia collector?

Do you own any of these items and would like to collaborate?

Send an email to fightclubbookofficial@gmail.com including:

  • Your name
  • If you were a crew member, the position you worked in
  • If you are a collector
  • Your city/state or country
  • A list with a brief description of the items you own.
  • A couple of well-lit photos or scans of the items. These images will be used for selection purposes only.

Participate in the celebration of this stunning, controversial, and influential classic of modern cinema!

Tim Miller interviewed by Alejandro Marin

Alejandro Marin
April 11, 2023
Canal Trece Colombia (YouTube) / Alejandro Marin (YouTube)

Tim Miller, creator of Love Death + Robots with David Fincher, and Director of Deadpool, attended the Cartagena de Indias International Film Festival (FICCI, Colombia), and he talked about science fiction, comics, animation, Terminator: Dark Fate, actress Natalia Reyes, Heavy Metal, James Cameron, and David Fincher.

Listen to the podcast version:

alejandromarin.com
Apple Podcasts
Spotify

Interview with Andrew Kevin Walker, writer of Se7en

Daniel Fee (Twitter)
September 15, 2022
Daniel Fee33 (YouTube)

In this video, I’m lucky enough to sit down with Andrew Kevin Walker! Screenwriter behind projects such as SE7EN, the David Fincher directed crime thriller, starring Brad Pitt & Morgan Freeman! Andrew is also the screenwriter behind Brainscan, Nerdland, he co-wrote Windfall, and he also wrote an episode of hit TV Show, Love Death and Robots! It was such an honour to chat with Andy!

I would really appreciate it if anyone could donate to the National Deaf Children’s Society! (Twitter) Every cent helps! Thanks!

Andrew Kevin Walker: website, Twitter, Instagram

Mentioned podcast:

David Koepp in conversation with Andrew Kevin Walker

September 11, 2019
Live Talks Los Angeles (Apple Podcasts)

Tim Miller at San Diego Comic-Con

Jim Viscardi
July 29, 2022
comicbook

Sitting down with ComicBook‘s Jim Viscardi at San Diego Comic-Con 2022 Deadpool Director Tim Miller discusses comic books, video games, The Goon, his abandoned Lone Wolf and Cub classic manga adaptation with David Fincher and screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker, another abandoned X-Men comic adaptation project, Deadpool, Love, Death & Robots and its “The Art of” book.

Tim Miller Announces New Movie ‘The Goon’ is Headed to Netflix

The film has been in limbo for years.

Maggie Boccella
July 23, 2022
Collider

San Diego Comic Con is a hell of a time for the entertainment industry, not least of which includes directors, whose involvement in projects is often announced or teased or otherwise revealed. It’s the biggest time of the year for film and television announcements, and Collider was excited to get in on the fun at our “Directors on Directors” panel, hosted in Hall H and featuring some of film’s — and particularly action and sci-fi’s — most iconic directors. Present at the panel were Chad Stahelski, director of all four John Wick films; Andrew Stanton, director of John Carter, as well as animated classics like Finding Nemo and WALL-E; and Tim Miller, director of Deadpool, as well as Terminator: Dark Fate.

Read the full article

‘The Goon’ Adaptation Set at Netflix With Patrick Osborne Directing

Adam Chitwood
July 23, 2022
The Wrap

Watch “The Goon. Development Hell”

The Allan McKay Podcast: Tim Miller, Founder of Blur Studio

Allan McKay
July 5, 2022
The Allan McKay Podcast

Tim Miller is a Film Director, Animator, Creative Director, and VFX Artist. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film for the work on his short film Gopher Broke. He made his directing debut with Deadpool. He is also known for creating opening sequences for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and Thor: The Dark World.

In 1995, Tim co-founded Blur Studio with David Stinnett and Cat Chapman. Blur is where animators and artists can collaborate and be in control of their creative destinies. Since then, the Studio has evolved into an award-winning production company with work spanning the realms of game cinematics, commercials, feature films, and more. Committed to their clients, artists, and the telling of great stories, Blur continues to grow as a high-end animation studio and original content creator, having recently helmed Netflix’s first animated anthology Love Death + Robots.

In this Podcast, Allan McKay interviews Tim about the history of launching Blur, its legacy, Tim’s ongoing collaboration with David Fincher, directing Deadpool and Terminator: Dark Fate, and creating Love Death + Robots.

Listen to the podcast:

Apple Podcasts
Spotify
Google Podcasts
Stitcher
libsyn

Follow Allan on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube.

‘Love, Death + Robots’ Season 3: David Fincher Gets Animated for the First Time on ‘Bad Travelling’

The animators tell IndieWire what it was like collaborating with Fincher on the mo-cap character animation and giant, slimy crab.

Bill Desowitz
June 9, 2022
IndieWire

It’s easy to see why David Fincher chose “Bad Travelling” as his first foray into directing animation. He made his feature debut with the ill-fated “Alien 3,” after all, and the premise of this third-season episode of “Love, Death + Robots” is a bit like setting the plight of the Nostromo on the high seas: A giant, slimy crab devours the crew of a shark-hunting vessel, with only the cunning navigator surviving to battle the beast. (It also makes up for Fincher’s aborted take on “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” at Disney.)

Fincher also likens “Bad Travelling” to “Ten Little Indians” meets “Deadliest Catch,” with the ship’s navigator, Torrin (Troy Baker), contending with mutiny, betrayal, and a starving Thanapod crustacean that bizarrely communicates through ventriloquism.

“You don’t necessarily want to see them come to unnatural ends,” Fincher said about the crew in the production notes. “The idea was not to make them despicable, but self-serving. That’s the thing I always loved about Harry Dean Stanton and Yaphet Kotto in ‘Alien’….”

Read the full profile