David Fincher offers a depressing Mindhunter season 3 update
By Mads Lennon
David Fincher just put the final nail in the Mindhunter coffin. According to a new interview, the show is officially dead, so fans who have been hoping and praying for Mindhunter season 3 to happen despite its cancellation should prepare for the worst.
Mindhunter was a psychological crime thriller series based on the 1995 true-crime book Mindhunter: Inside the FBI’s Elite Serial Crime Unit written by John E. Douglas and Mark Olshaker. Jonathan Groff and Holt McCallany starred as the lead FBI agents, while Anna Torv played psychologist Wendy Carr.
The series followed the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit as they tracked and studied various serial killers in the hopes of creating profiles and using the knowledge gained to solve ongoing cases.
Despite gaining a big fanbase and mostly positive critical reception, Mindhunter was unofficially canceled after a second season. Netflix let the cast out of their contracts and issued a rep for the company told TVLine that it was Fincher’s fault the show wouldn’t be continuing, revealing that he was focusing on directing Mank and other projects.
"“David is focused on directing his first Netflix film Mank and on producing the second season of Love, Death and Robots,” a Netflix rep said in a statement to TVLine. “He may revisit Mindhunter again in the future, but in the meantime felt it wasn’t fair to the actors to hold them from seeking other work while he was exploring new work of his own.”"
David Fincher blames Netflix for the lack of Mindhunter season 3
Well, now Fincher is shifting the blame back to Netflix. According to him, the reason Mindhunter season 3 is not going to happen is because it’s too expensive, and Netflix doesn’t deem the show to be a worthy investment.
It’s interesting because Mindhunter always appeared to be the one example of a show that wasn’t actually Netflix’s fault, indicated by the rep’s initial statement that it was Fincher’s choice.
However, in a recent interview with a French publication, Fincher says otherwise. Here’s the full quote, as translated by Forbes:
"“I’m very proud of the first two seasons. But it’s a very expensive show and, in the eyes of Netflix, we didn’t attract enough of an audience to justify such an investment (for Season 3). I don’t blame them, they took risks to get the show off the ground, gave me the means to do Mank [his black and white film about 1930s Hollywood] the way I wanted to do it, and they allowed me to venture down new paths with The Killer. It’s a blessing to be able to work with people who are capable of boldness. The day our desires are not the same, we have to be honest about parting ways.”"
Despite the fact Mindhunter is not going to continue, Fincher doesn’t appear to hold any ill will toward Netflix, adding that they took “risks to get the show off the ground” and allowed him a chance to produce the Oscar-nominated movie Mank.
The working relationship doesn’t seem to have soured since Fincher’s project The Killer is due to release on Netflix this November.