By Over the weekend an interview with “Chinatown” screenwriter Robert Towne was published in which he revealed that the scripts for a previously announced prequel TV series to that classic film were completed.
The original 2019 announcement had filmmaker David Fincher attached to co-write and direct the pilot. The new interview revealed the script’s status, but not much about why it was stalled.
The implication is Fincher has been busy. The filmmaker released the Michael Fassbender-led “The Killer” on the service last year and has been linked to remakes of Hitchcock’s “Strangers on a Train” and Korean series “Squid Game” as his potential next project.
Now a follow-up report at The Playlist has revealed further details. They indicate the reason the scripts are complete is because the “Chinatown” prequel was originally meant to be Fincher’s next project after “The Killer”.
In fact he was reportedly already intending to cast his “Mank” star Tom Pelphrey in the Jake Gittes role. 41-year-old Pelphrey is known for his regular roles in the likes of “Ozark,” “Marvel’s Iron Fist,” “Banshee” and more recently “Outer Range”.
Towne worked on the series scripts while Fincher made “The Killer” and it was ready to go until Fincher reportedly had a change of heart after seeing how “Squid Game” took off on Netflix in late 2021.
A few months later, Fincher opted to pivot to the English-language “Squid Game” remake as his post-“Killer” project and put the “Chinatown” prequel on the back burner. The report says Fincher has already been quietly working on the remake for two years alongside British writer Dennis Kelly who penned 2014’s underrated “Black Sea,” wrote the book for “Matilda the Musical,” and co-created the original British thriller series “Utopia”.
Is Fincher still on it? It’s not clear. Netflix’s Ted Sarandos shot down “Squid Game” remake talk earlier this year, saying “since the main series is still ongoing, there’s no justified reason for Netflix to do a remake”.
That hasn’t stopped Fincher before though. Despite a well-received and globally successful Swedish-language version of Stieg Larsson’s novel “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” grossing over $100 million in 2009, Fincher did his own successful adaptation in 2011 that received widespread critical acclaim, Oscar nominations and grossed $232.6 million worldwide.
The second season of the original Korean “Squid Game” series is expected to hit Netflix at the end of the year with rumors of a third season also on the way.`
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