Old pals they may be, but David Fincher and James Ellroy have yet to formalise their friendship with a working collaboration. Until now, perhaps. According to Indiewire’s scoop, the pair have plans for an HBO crime noir set in Ellroy’s 1950s LA sweet spot.
There’s little known by way of plot specifics, but Fincher and Ellroy are in talks with HBO to thrash out a deal and the prospect of a meshing of their hardboiled sensibilities is a tantalising one.
Fincher was once attached to adapt Ellroy’s The Black Dahlia, a project that ultimately fell, with mixed results, to Brian De Palma in 2006. Pre-empting the current boom in cable TV, Fincher had looked at transforming it into a $80m miniseries with Mark Wahlberg in the role that would eventually fall into Aaron Eckhart’s lap.
For Ellroy fans, there’s been talk mooted in recent years of a Blood’s A Rover adaptation, the third part of his sprawling Americana trilogy that also sports American Tabloid and The Cold Six Thousand, and at one point George Clooney had talked about adapting his White Jazz, but so far both have come to naught.
Fincher, of course, will be pursuing other television projects after Gone Girl’s release on October 3, including Utopia, a second Gillian Flynn adaptation.
For a refresher on that first mystery-thriller, starring Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike as an unhappily married couple, check out the **Gone Girl **trailer below.