David Fincher’s The Killer Gets First Look and Release Date

Netflix has revealed the first look at Oscar-winning director David Fincher’s new film, The Killer. The Killer (2022) also has an official release date of November 10th, and the brief sizzle reel footage included in Netflix’s “SAVE THE DATES | 2023 Films Preview” trailer certainly lives us to the title. Michael Fassbender plays a hitman whose job hits rough patch, and the footage is certainly in the vein of shadowy, Noir-style tales that are David Fincher’s signature. 

The Killer stars Michael Fassbender and Tilda Swinton, leading a cast that includes Kerry O’Malley as Dolores, and Charles Parnell (Top Gun: Maverick) as Hodges, Arliss Howard (Full Metal Jacket) and Brazilian star (Sophie Charlotte) are also in the film. Cinematographer Erik Messerschmidt (Mindhunter) is re-teaming with Fincher for the film, while his musical collaborators Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross (The Social Network, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Gone Girl, Mank) will compose the score. Fincher’s Se7en screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker is doing the script, which is based on the French graphic novel by Alexis Nolent.

The Killer: “tells the story of an assassin that begins to develop a conscience and doubts his work, which happens at a time when clients demand his particular set of skills.”

Netflix global head of film Scott Stuber has been teasing for a while now how the streaming service is transforming itself into the new go-to destination for big blockbuster movies and/or acclaimed “cinema,” by courting the biggest directors in the business: 

“We had to build an infrastructure of executive talent who could speak film. It was recruiting that talent. Getting Marty Scorsese, getting Alfonso Cuaron, Susanne Bier, Paul Greengrass. Then we moved into a slate of talent-drive, R-rated films. We had to build a development pipeline. Sometimes people forget that our film group is four years old. We started with nothing. We’re finally getting there. We’re talking to Guillermo Del Toro, Greta Gerwig, David Fincher. We’ve gone out and made acquisitions with the C.S. Lewis books and the Dahl catalog.” 

Will David Fincher’s Mindhunter Continue on Netflix?

Aside from making films, David Fincher brought Netflix an acclaimed TVmnseries in Mindhunter. A dramatized look at the formation of the FBI’s Serial Killer profiling techniques, the series featured dark looks at some of history’s worst killers, while telling a compelling Noir-tinted story about how understanding the thought process of evil men – and looking them in the face, drags the investigators closer to they abyss. 

Mindhunter only ran for two seasons on Netflix, and Fincher indicates that while he might go back to it one day, he’s definitely not in a rush:

 “We had all hands on deck to finish [Season Two] and we didn’t have a ton of scripts and a ton of outlines and a bible standing by for season three. I’ll admit I was a little bit like, ‘I don’t know that I’m ready to spend another two years in the crawl space…’ At some point, I’d love to revisit it. The hope was to get all the way up to the late ’90s, early 2000s, hopefully get all the way up to people knocking on the door at Dennis Rader’s house.”

The Killer will be on Netflix on November 10th.