UPDATED: An official synopsis has been released:
“After a fateful near-miss, an assassin battles his employers, and himself, on an international manhunt he insists isn’t personal.”
EARLIER: The Venice Film Festival has released David Fincher’s statement on his upcoming film, “The Killer." The film’s page has also been updated with the first official cast and crew list —
The Killer is my attempt to reconcile notions I’ve had for years about cinematic stories and their telling. I have always held: “What were you doing in Chinatown?... As little as possible”—to be the single greatest evocation of backstory I’ve ever heard. I was also playfully curious about the revenge genre as a tension delivery-system. So when Mr. Walker came aboard and fully embraced these notions/ questions about broad brushstrokes of understanding giving way to the blind-stitch of “moment expansion” - I felt we needed to try something. Mr. Fassbender’s 3-hour response time for: “Yes, let’s!” sealed it for us both and, of course, we all wanted Tilda (Mr. Walker wrote it with her in mind—but please don’t tell Ms. Swinton, she could become insufferable if she knows literally everyone feels this way about her.)
We don’t know much about this film. It’ll be screening twice at Venice and that’ll be it until its November release via Netflix. Earlier in the month, a Venice programmer compared “The Killer” to Jean-Pierre Melville’s “Le Samourai.”
So much hype for this new Fincher, but, yes, it is very good. It reminded me a lot and looks like Melville’s “Le Samourai,” almost as if Melville had made a film in 2023, and it seems to also understand that film quite well. The position of the camera, the gestures, the photography. In short, it's a very remarkable film that you don’t even realize how good it is while you’re watching it. It overwhelms in such a way that you don't even notice it sneaking up on you.
It does make sense. The story is a perfect fit for the late French filmmaker’s filmography, and if you haven’t seen “Le Samourai” yet, watch it as soon as possible! It’s an absolute masterpiece of meditative tension.
“The Killer” is an adaptation of Alexis Nolent’s graphic novel series. “Seven” screenwriter, Andrew Kevin Walker, was hired to adapt Nolent’s novels. Two-time Oscar winners Atticus Ross and Trent Reznor will be scoring the film. Fincher’s go-to DP, Erik Messerschmidt, who worked on “Mank,” is also lensing.