Over the past half-decade or so, American crime-genre author Gillian Flynn has slowly but surely developed into something of a sensation. All three of her published novels to date — Sharp Objects, Dark Places, and Gone Girl — have been well-reviewed best-sellers, and all three are currently in the process of being adapted to the silver screen. Information regarding the Sharp Objects film is still hard to come by, but we know that Amy Adams (Oscar-nominated once again for The Master) will star for Sarah’s Key director Gilles Paquet-Brenner.
And the Gone Girl adaptation, meanwhile, could very well turn out to be the highest-profile production of the three, as this Deadline report claims that David Fincher — a longtime guru with this sort of material, even if his 2011 The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was a bit disappointing for me — is considering hopping on-board the project to direct. Flynn wrote the screenplay herself, which was picked up last July “in a 7-figure deal” by 20th Century Fox and Pacific Standard’s Reese Witherspoon.
The novel’s story, which you can read more about over at Amazon, revolves around “a woman [who] disappears on the day of her fifth anniversary…[All] roads point to her husband as the killer.” Fincher, of course, has been working on 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea: Captain Nemo — the last news came with good and bad sides: Brad Pitt was being circled, but Disney were hesitant — and he also directed the first two episodes of the forthcoming TV series House of Cards, which will premiere on Netflix on February 1. He’s also been rather elusive regarding whether or not he’ll return for the Dragon Tattoo sequels, though the last report we made on that subject pointed in the direction of the affirmative.
There’s still no information regarding the potential cast of Gone Girl, other than the perfunctory producer / director credit, though if Fincher does indeed end up taking the job, I think we can pretty much expect many big-time names to start flocking to the project. Personally, I’d like to see Fincher helm Gone Girl, if only because I’m not crazy about the idea of him getting stuck doing two more Lisbeth Salander-centered sequels: He’d obviously do a slick job with them, I’m sure, but I don’t necessarily enjoy the thought of a director in his league getting pigeonholed into the same universe for years on end. That’s just my brief take.
Have you read any of Flynn’s novels? Would you like to see Fincher direct Gone Girl?