Fincher's 'Torso' Cut Off at the Knees

As you're aware, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button just racked up 13 Oscar nominations, one of the record set by...some other movie. Today, it's the curious case of David Fincher, who has enjoyed a creatively fruitful but nonetheless strained relationship with Paramount over the years. The studio has decided to let the rights to the project formerly known as Torso, a development we warned might occur two months ago. However, that was before Button became what it is, and though its profit margin won't be huge for Paramount, it will still give it money on top of its prestige. How do you not push a project forward that involves Fincher, Matt Damon, a by-all-accounts great piece of source material, and a serial killer being chased by Eliot Ness if you're Paramount? That's a good question. The answer is probably money, according to The Hollywood Reporter. In addition to the period piece just being expensive to shoot and being a little too left-of-center to approach without a star like Damon (who also comes at a price), Paramount didn't even want to pay to keep the rights at the end of 2008, and now the project is in limbo, even though Fincher's still clamoring to make the movie. The Reporter believes this issue isn't done for Paramount, although at this point, I think it makes no sense for them to enter the process again. Although they own the current draft of the script, the film would be based on the graphic novel Torso, meaning another adaptation would take time but wouldn't be inventing a story from scratch. I would think you'd want to hold on to every good project you have and try to find ways to make them less expensively rather than let go of something unique and put yourself behind the 8-ball to find another quality idea, especially when your director just got 13 Oscar nominations for you.

Comments

[faulty logic]

Sad turn of events indeed. I'm a huge fan of writer Brian Micheal Bendis, it sucks that another of his novels is getting put back on the shelves... if i remember correctly they had Charlize Theron behind another one of his titled goldfish... don't know what's become of that one.

[faulty logic]

MY apologies, Theron is working on JINX. Still... that needs to make some progress...