Whatever happened with Mind Hunter at HBO was the kind of mistake that keeps upping Netflix profile. Netflix keeps evolving quickly, with very little competition at their level. They are not as top-heavy as HBO, and they seem willing to take more risks with their content. It’s also cheaper and more readily available than HBO and more importantly, it’s the one the kids are watching, meaning it will have no problem appealing to or reaching the millennials. All of that makes Netflix, currently, a force to be reckoned with.
Fincher and Theron are behind the project, though it’s not clear in what capacity — how many episodes Fincher will direct, for instance. Joe Penhall will adapt the script from the book Mind Hunter: Inside the FBI’s Elite Serial Crime Unit. The last time Fincher teamed up with Netflix — for House of Cards — they changed the way we watch series television.
The one thing we know for sure about David Fincher is that he pulls no punches when it comes getting at the truth – no matter how black-hearted it is (Zodiac, Se7en, Gone Girl). In an era where true crime stories continue to fascinate us — long form versions of it like Top of the Lake and The Killing; non-fiction versions of it like Serial and Netflix’s unmissable documentary series, Making a Murderer — and specifically Netflix can provide really one of the few ways to tell these stories completely, without having to worry about Cinemascores and opening box office and, god forbid, the Oscars.
The plot of the book is described this way:
He has hunted some of the most notorious and sadistic criminals of our time: The Trailside Killer in San Francisco, the Atlanta Child Murderer. He has confronted, interviewed and researched dozens of serial killers and assassins, including Charles Manson, Richard Speck, John Wayne Gacy, and James Earl Ray — for a landmark study to understand their motives. To get inside their minds. He is Special Agent John Douglas, the model for law enforcement legend Jack Crawford in Thomas Harris’s thrillers Red Dragon and The Silence of the Lambs, and the man who ushered in a new age in behavorial science and criminal profiling. Recently retired after twenty-five years of service, John Douglas can finally tell his unique and compelling story.
In other words, holy fucking shit.
