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.
Emmy and Oscar award-winner Alberto Mielgo’s animated short “Jibaro” thrills in Season 3 of Tim Miller and David Fincher’s groundbreaking anthology series Love, Death + Robots.
When Oscar and Emmy winner Alberto Mielgo was invited to pitch a story for the latest volume of the 11-time Emmy-winning series Love, Death + Robots, the Spanish director, artist, and animator decided to use a folkloric lens to examine the lengths to which some people will go to obtain what they cannot have. The resulting short, “Jibaro,” centers the battle of a deaf knight desperate to slay a golden siren and claim her as a trophy. The mythic creature grows increasingly frustrated, failing to understand why her opponent is immune to the powers of her song.
“It was inspired by those videos on National Geographic where there is an alligator fighting a jaguar for food,” Mielgo says. “It’s a crazy, toxic relationship between two characters, two predators, who both want and need each other.”
The unconventional and breathtaking episode is among nine new shorts included in the third volume of Love, Death + Robots. When executive producers Tim Miller and David Fincher first dreamed up the concept for Love, Death + Robots, they had a clear creative objective: “Let’s make a sandbox where anything’s possible,” explains Fincher, the Oscar-nominated director best known for live-action films like Mank, as well as the TV series MINDHUNTER. Fincher makes his animated directorial debut with the Volume 3 short “Bad Travelling,” a motion-capture masterpiece following a crew of degenerate sailors contending with a giant crustacean who boards their ship with an appetite for destruction. “We’re just telling stories. I think that the best of it works on a childlike level — and a naughty teenager level. As an adult looking at it, I appreciate that.”
Oscar and Emmy winner Alberto Mielgo tells IndieWire about returning to the anthology with an animated original about a golden siren and an armored knight.
Love, Death + Robots Vol 3. EXTREMING TOMORROW. May 20, 2022 ❤️💀🤖
Alan Watts – “Dream” Music: Apache – Lord & Master
Emmy-winning animated anthology LOVE DEATH + ROBOTS returns with a third volume executive produced by Tim Miller (Deadpool, Terminator: Dark Fate) and David Fincher (MINDHUNTER, Mank). Terror, imagination and beauty combine in nine new episodes which stretch from uncovering an ancient evil to a comedic apocalypse, telling startling short stories of fantasy, horror and science-fiction with trademark wit and visual invention.
The director made his first animated short for the new season of this Netflix anthology. “It was an incredibly freeing, eye-opening, mind-expanding way to interface with a story,” he said.
Before David Fincher became an A-list director and multiple Oscar and Emmy nominee — lauded for of-the-moment films like “Fight Club” and “The Social Network” and the TV series “House of Cards” and “Mindhunter” — he was one of the co-founders of the production company Propaganda Films. Propaganda was known for its visually dazzling TV commercials and music videos, and Fincher honed his craft in dozens of miniature movies made in myriad styles.
Yet until recently, he had never directed animation, even though he loves the medium so much that he signed on a few years ago to be an executive producer of the Netflix anthology animation series “Love, Death + Robots,” which returns for its third season on Friday.
“Love, Death + Robots” sprung from the ashes of a project Fincher had been developing with the “Deadpool” director Tim Miller since the late 2000s: a revival of “Heavy Metal,” the animated movie series inspired by the adults-only science-fiction and fantasy comics magazine. The first season of “Love, Death + Robots” debuted in 2019, featuring 18 episodes (ranging in length from 6 to 17 minutes) that adapted short stories by genre favorites like Peter F. Hamilton, John Scalzi and Joe Lansdale. An eight-episode second season followed in 2021.
Despite his involvement, Fincher never made a short of his own until Season 3, when he and the screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker (who wrote Fincher’s crime thriller “Seven”) tackled a tale by the British science-fiction author Neal Asher called “Bad Travelling.” Set on the high seas on a distant planet, the story follows a merchant ship as it is tormented by a giant, intelligent crab that manipulates the crew members and then eliminates them one by one. Fincher described the short as “like a David Lean movie crossed with ‘Ten Little Indians.’”
This month will see the return of “Love, Death + Robots” on Netflix, which is produced by Tim Miller and David Fincher. With the third volume arriving, something special is happening. Fincher will be helming his first animated short for the anthology streaming series.
Netflix has released a new trailer and announced Fincher is directing the segment “Bad Travelling” which was written by screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker (“Se7en”) and based on a short story by Miller’s longtime pal, author Neal Asher. This marks Fincher’s first time directing something for the streaming series.
Netflix has also included a synopsis that reads as follows:
“A jable shark-hunting sailing vessel is attacked by a giant crustacean whose size and intelligence is matched only by its appetite. Mutiny, betrayal, and ventriloquism with a corpse.”
Emmy-winning animated anthology LOVE DEATH + ROBOTS returns with a third volume executive produced by Tim Miller (Deadpool, Terminator: Dark Fate) and David Fincher (MINDHUNTER, Mank). Terror, imagination and beauty combine in nine new episodes which stretch from uncovering an ancient evil to a comedic apocalypse, telling startling short stories of fantasy, horror and science-fiction with trademark wit and visual invention.
From the streamer that brought you The Crown (Winner 21 Emmy® Awards) and The Queen’s Gambit (Winner 11 Emmy® Awards), comes the return of the 11-Time Emmy® Award-winning (yes, look it up!) LOVE DEATH + ROBOTS.
The Fincher Analyst 