David Fincher has been busy at Netflix in recent years, overseeing House Of Cards, Mindhunter and Love, Death + Robots. He's been so preoccupied, in fact, that he hasn't directed a film since 2014's Gone Girl. That's about to change. Sticking with the streaming service, his next project will be a feature biopic of golden age Hollywood screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz. Gary Oldman has signed on to play the title role in Mank.
Mankiewicz was a journalist who moved into Hollywood screenwriting in the 1920s, scripting dozens of films and acting as a secret script doctor on dozens of others. The Wizard Of Oz is among his credits, but he most famously collaborated with Orson Welles on Citizen Kane. The "tumultuous" development of Kane and Mankiewicz's bitter subsequent dispute with Welles over its authorship is thought to be the subject of Fincher's story.
Mank is a long-held passion project of Fincher's, the screenplay having been written by his late father, Jack Fincher. Reflecting his clout at Netflix, he's shooting the film in black and white, and production is scheduled to start in November. The search for Mank's Orson Welles begins now...