David Fincher had his vision for the Harry Potter film series turned down by Warner Bros. executives for being too “creepy”.
The 62-year-old filmmaker, who directed Fight Club, said to Variety: “I was asked to come in and talk to them about how I would do Harry Potter.
“I remember saying, ‘I just don’t want to do the clean Hollywood version of it. I want to do something that looks a lot more like ‘Withnail and I,’ and I want it to be kind of creepy.’” However, the producers had a more wholesome adaptation of JK Rowling’s novels in mind.
He added: “They were like, ‘We want Thom Browne schooldays by way of ‘Oliver’.’”
Despite having successfully adapted popular books like Gone Girl and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Fincher wasn’t fazed by the popularity of the novels.
He said: “Is there a built-in audience? That’s somebody else’s job… I was interested in Gone Girl in spite of the fact that it was a bestseller… I liked the idea of punishment for our narcissistic leanings as it relates to finding a mate.
“With Dragon Tattoo, I’m much more fond of Chinatown and the shoe leather in that than I am in any hacker thing. But I loved this broken girl who’s given a chance to do research with this guy that she’s not quite so sure about. And I don’t even know that he’s kind to her; I think he just treats her the way you want to be treated, and for her, this is so revelatory.
“And if you’ve ever been to Sweden, you’re talking about a country about the size of California with the population of L.A. County. There’s a lot of room in them thar hills for serial killers and for dumping bodies. And I loved the idea of really, truly getting winter across in an investigation.”
Despite having successfully adapted popular books like Gone Girl and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Fincher wasn’t fazed by the popularity of the novels
(Image: Publicity Picture (Warner Bros Pictures))
When it came to directing the thriller movie Zodiac – his 2007 chronicle of the 35-year investigation into the Zodiac killings – the filmmaker admitted he had long been fascinated by the true-crime tale.
He said: “[The Zodiac killer] was a boogeyman when I was a seven-year-old, and I was kind of going through the process the main character was going through — what happened? I felt kindred to that.”