David Fincher’s Serial Killer Thriller Officially Becomes One of Streaming’s Biggest Movies
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With David Fincher‘s first theatrical release in more than a decade around the corner, his fans seem to be rewatching his past gems on streaming. This week, Fincher’s 2007 noir masterpiece found a spot on HBO Max’s global top-10 list, along with his breakout blockbuster Se7en. Both films have lots in common, from aesthetic aspects such as Fincher’s sleek visuals to thematic overlaps. Both films also revolve around arguably his favorite subject: serial killers. Over the course of his celebrated career, Fincher has become synonymous with serial killer movies such as Se7en and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, not to mention the cult classic Netflix series Mindhunter. But most fans seem to agree that his most underrated serial killer project — arguably his most underrated project, period — is the 2007 noir film currently witnessing a resurgence on streaming.
According to FlixPatrol, it was among the global HBO Max top 10 this week, when the leaderboard was topped by the horror sequel Evil Dead Burn. Incidentally, both the new Evil Dead sequel and Fincher’s 2007 film earned similar amounts in their theatrical runs. Evil Dead Burn, which was released theatrically earlier this year, grossed around $72 million worldwide. Fincher’s film, which will celebrate its 20th anniversary next year, grossed around $85 million worldwide despite excellent reception. The trouble was that it also cost a reported $85 million to produce, making it a theatrical flop — movies need to gross twice their reported budgets in order to break even in theaters, given the standard 50-50 split in revenue between studios and exhibitors.
Collider Exclusive · 8 Questions · 2 Minutes Which Coen Brothers Movie Would You Thrive In? Lebowski · O Brother · Fargo · No Country
Nobody writes people like the Coen brothers. The decent ones. The talkers. The ones who stopped trying years ago. And the ones who can already see how bad this is going to get. Four films, four completely different ways of handling trouble. Eight questions decide which one you would actually walk out of.
🎳Lebowski(1998)
🎸O Brother(2000)
❄️Fargo(1996)
🪙No Country(2007)
01
A bag of money lands in your lap. What happens next? Every Coen film starts roughly here. It never goes smoothly.
02
Somebody is being completely unreasonable with you. How does it go? Coen dialogue is mostly people failing to understand each other.
03
What is your actual relationship with work? Everyone in these films is either working far too hard or not at all.
04
Long drive, bad weather, nobody else on the road. How are you? There is always a drive in these films. It is never a good drive.
05
You are offered a shortcut that is not quite legal. This is the moment where the Coens find out who you really are.
06
The plan has fallen apart completely. What is your move? In a Coen film the plan always falls apart. That is the genre.
07
Which of these sounds most like something you would say? Nobody writes a line quite like the Coens. Which one is yours?
08
How does your film end? Eight questions in, this is the one that decides your movie.
The Verdict Is In Your Coen Film Is…
Four films, four completely different ways of handling money, trouble
and other people. This is the one you would survive, why it suits you, and what it would cost you to
be there.
The Big Lebowski · 1998
The Big Lebowski
You have quietly arranged your life so that very little can get
to you, and a surprising number of people find that infuriating. You would be completely at
home here.
The Dude is the only person in the film with no ambition, and the only one who comes out
the other side undamaged. That is not an accident.
You do not chase things. You let situations arrive and you deal with them at your own
pace, which is a genuine skill however lazy it looks.
This is a full crime plot happening around a man who mostly wants his rug back, and that
is exactly the energy you would bring to it.
Everything goes wrong. You abide. The film ends.
O Brother, Where Art Thou? · 2000
O Brother
You talk your way through life and it works far more often than
it should. Give you a bad situation and an audience and you will find a way out of both at
once.
Everett never has a plan that survives contact with reality. He has something better,
which is the ability to keep talking until a new one turns up.
You are the optimist in the group, the one who makes a ridiculous idea sound reasonable
at two in the morning.
This is the warmest film the Coens have made. It is a chase, a comedy and a musical at
once, and nobody in it is quite beyond saving.
You would end up famous entirely by accident, and act like you planned it all along.
Fargo · 1996
Fargo
You would survive Fargo because you are the only kind of person
who does: patient, decent, and completely unimpressed by anybody trying to be clever.
Marge Gunderson solves the whole case by being polite, thorough and unhurried while
everybody around her panics. That is the entire argument of the film.
You do the boring parts of the job, which is precisely why you would notice the thing
everyone else walked straight past.
Fargo is about ordinary greed causing enormous damage, and about one person who simply
refuses to be corrupted by any of it.
You would go home at the end of it, have dinner, and sleep perfectly well.
No Country for Old Men · 2007
No Country
You do not expect the world to be fair and you stopped being
surprised about it a long time ago. That clear-eyed quality is exactly what this film asks
for.
No Country is the Coens at their coldest: a film where being smart, fast and careful
might still not be anywhere near enough.
You plan for the worst, you keep your own counsel, and some part of you is already
working out the exit.
Llewelyn Moss is competent, prepared and resourceful, and the film is honest about
whether any of that is ever sufficient.
You would see it coming. Whether that helps is the one question the film refuses to
answer.
David Fincher’s New Movie Is Around the Corner
We’re talking about Zodiac, Fincher’s fact-based thriller about the search for a serial killer who terrorized California in the 1970s. The movie was headlined by Jake Gyllenhaal, Robert Downey Jr., and Mark Ruffalo, who played three men from different fields, all drawn into the manhunt for the Zodiac Killer. The movie now holds a “Certified Fresh” 90% score on the aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, where the consensus reads, “A quiet, dialogue-driven thriller that delivers with scene after scene of gut-wrenching anxiety. David Fincher also spends more time illustrating nuances of his characters and recreating the mood of the ’70s than he does on gory details of murder.”
Fincher has spent the last decade or so working exclusively with Netflix. The streamer will give his upcoming movie, The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth, an exclusive IMAX run this November before releasing it for streaming in December.
