By Filmmaker has had his name attached to multiple projects over the years, some of which either stalled or he otherwise exited and had others do it.
He’s considered pure sci-fi with “Rendezvous With Rama,” action-horror with a “World War Z” sequel, the ‘Dragon Tattoo’ follow-up “The Girl Who Played with Fire,” and even…. “Harry Potter”.
But during a recent interview to promote the 4K re-release of his “Se7en,” the master filmmaker told Variety that he was considered for the adaptation of J.K. Rowling’s “Harry Potter” films at one point, but the studio didn’t like his pitch.
Warners wanted “‘Tom Brown’s School Days’ by way of ‘Oliver’” which is not the take that Fincher wanted to deliver:
“I was asked to come in and talk to them about how I would do ‘Harry Potter. I remember saying, ‘I just don’t want to do the clean Hollywood version of it. I want to do something that looks a lot more like ‘Withnail and I,’ and I want it to be kind of creepy.”
The result as Chris Columbus’ first film which played like a traditional kids fantasy film. It was only in subsequent entries and darker turn of the series, namely with the third film ‘Prisoner of Azkaban,’ that the franchise achieved acclaim.
It wasn’t the only run-in he had with Warners over a film. He tells the trade he showed them “Zodiac” and their response was “This isn’t Se7en”. He gets that reasoning, saying: “I don’t even know if ‘Zodiac’ really is a, I mean, certainly it’s about a serial killer, but it’s really, it’s a newspaper movie at its marrow.”
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