With David Fincher's latest film, Mank in the can and headed for its debut on Netflix in December, your thoughts might have turned to one of the other big projects that the director oversees for the streaming service: crime series Mindhunter. There's bad news on that front, though, as Fincher tells Vulture we shouldn't expect a third season any time soon.
According to the director, at the start of the second season, "We ended up looking at what was written and deciding I didn’t like any of it, so we tossed it and started over. Which was one stumbling block. And then there's the workload. Despite promoting assistant director Courtenay Miles to run the show alongside creator Joe Penhall, Fincher reports, "It’s a 90-hour workweek. It absorbs everything in your life. When I got done, I was pretty exhausted, and I said, 'I don’t know if I have it in me right now to break season three.'"
The show, set in the 1970s, follows the early days of the FBI using profiling and interviewing incarcerated serial killers to help with work on current cases. Starring Jonathan Groff, Holt McCallany and Anna Torv, it scored acclaim but hasn't always enjoyed huge audiences. "Listen, for the viewership that it had, it was a very expensive show," Fincher says. "We talked about, 'Finish Mank and then see how you feel,' but I honestly don’t think we’re going to be able to do it for less than I did season two. And on some level, you have to be realistic — dollars have to equal eyeballs." Netflix is not closing the door completely on the idea of more Mindhunter, but expect to be waiting a while if it does return...
Mank, meanwhile, arrives on the service on 4 December. The latest trailer is below.