Zodiac

[modage]

4. Zodiac
because before he fell off the planet David Fincher was one of my favorite directors working today.  and unless it's a Guero to Se7en's Odelay, it should be a welcome return.  it seems like an eternity since Fight Club, and though Panic Room was a nice exercise it's been far too long without him.  hopefully he can prove he still deserves his own forum.

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!

ZODIAC TO 2007
Source: JoBlo

One of my "must see" films of 2006 has just turned into one of my "must see" films of 2007. David Fincher's serial killer suspense flick ZODIAC has been pushed back from a fall date later this year to January 2007. What gives? Isn't January where bad movies go to die? Didn't ELEKTRA open up in January? Paramount didn't offer up an explanation to the move but since it never had a solid release date, they could easily just say there was no delay as it's release was never set. I would think this would be a perfect October/Halloween type release and to me a January date doesn't make sense but perhaps there's more here to the story than we know. It's just disappointing to wait this long for another David Fincher movie only to find out it's been delayed again. Stay tuned for more...

[MacGuffin]

Source: Hollywood Elsewhere

Confusion hovers over the release of David Fincher's Zodiac, one of the most highly anticipated dramas of the fall. The IMDB has an 11.22.06 U.S. release date but Coming Soon has it coming out January 19, 2007. There's also a Robert Downey fan site that's reporting the release date as 1.19.07. It says that Fincher is doing some reshoots (which Downey is involved in) and will resume filming reshoots sometime in late June.

[©brad]

Source: Hollywood Elsewhere

Confusion hovers over the release of David Fincher's Zodiac, one of the most highly anticipated dramas of the fall. The IMDB has an 11.22.06 U.S. release date but Coming Soon has it coming out January 19, 2007. There's also a Robert Downey fan site that's reporting the release date as 1.19.07. It says that Fincher is doing some reshoots (which Downey is involved in) and will resume filming reshoots sometime in late June.

1.19.2007 is my birthday!

i most likely won't see it on that exact date , for i'll be on heavy doses of jack daniels and xanax at that point, but nonehtless, it's releasing on my birthday!

so ofcourse the movie is going to be badass.

[MacGuffin]

Source: Hollywood Elsewhere

Zodiac director David Fincher and casting director Laray Mayfield are looking to hire an African American actress to play a bus driver in a new scene that will shoot in late June/early July. "Unnerved by the Zodiac's threat against children on school buses, this African-American woman asks the police what they are doing to stop the killer...1 speech & 2 lines, 1 scene," the breakdown reads.

[modage]

film screens.  title has apparently been changed to The Chronicles.

http://www.aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=23688

[polkablues]

title has apparently been changed to The Chronicles.

Soon to be changed again, to "The Chronic--WHAT--cles".

[MacGuffin]

'Zodiac' Attack
He just wrapped his first serial-killer movie since Seven, but did David Fincher's cast survive the shoot?
Source: Entertainment Weekly

David Fincher has many gifts, but managing talent isn't always one of them. Around Hollywood, the 43-year-old director is almost well-known for exasperating casts and crews as he is for flicks like Fight Club.

His next film, Zodiac, showcases all the trademark Fincher ingredients: ambition, visual panache, and offscreen drama. Starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo, and Robert Downey Jr., it's a serial-killer movie -- about the Zodiac slayer, who struck Northern California in the 1960s and '70s -- that marks Fincher's second attempt to reinvent the genre. (Seven, anyone?) The film, a massive undertaking, encompasses more than three decades of action. One version of Zodiac's shooting script verged on 200 pages, which could translate to a three-hour plus running time.

A Bay Area native with the forensic acumen of a CSI junkie, Fincher took about three years to research everything from period decor to ballistics. And that unrelenting attention to detail extended to the set. Once production began last fall, the director frayed nerves by filming dozens of takes of even the most routine scenes. "A kid enters, picks up a ball. He must have done that 50 times," recalls an on-set source. "People were pulling their hair out." It was a time-consuming process, and for a number of reasons the $70 million-plus drama has seen one potential release date bumped and is now set to hit theaters in January.

Fincher declined to speak to EW for this story, but Paramount exec Alli Shearmur dismisses negative rumors as trivial. "David is unique," she says. "However many takes he does, he does." The studio expects to have a cut by the end of the month, and those who have seen early footage describe a haunting look with plot twists aplenty. Of course, it's worth remembering that those same things could have been said before the release of a hit film like Seven... or a miss like Alien 3.

[MacGuffin]

Source: Hollywood-Elsewhere

A filmmaker friend has passed along some info about David Fincher and Zodiac, by way of an editor pal who knows a sound mixer who worked on Zodiac a while back.

"This girl is very smart and cool," this guy says. "She's very much the San Franciso arty girl who hates a lot of Hollywood shit and is funny talking about working on all the shit she does. Anyway, she said Zodiac is fucking brilliant and so amazing and smart. I really, really trust this girl. She says the movie is great and that George Lucas was blown away by it.

"She also said that Robert Downey, Jr. gives an incredible Oscar-level performance.

"But here's my favorite detail. The first half of the movie, which takes place in the late '60s, is mixed mono when all of radio was AM and with the advent of FM, in the chronology of the film as the calendar moves into the '70s, the movie turns stereo. Such a great idea. She said that Fincher has the best ears of anyone other than David Lynch.

"The other point to make here is that if Zodiac sucked there's noway Dreamamount would ever greenlight Fincher's Benjamin Button project, which will star Brad Pitt."

[Pozer]

She's very much the San Franciso arty girl who hates a lot of Hollywood shit... She says the movie is great and that George Lucas was blown away by it.

[MacGuffin]

THE SEASON: END OF YEAR CROWDING LEAVES STUDIOS WITH AN EMBARRASSMENT OF RICHES
By Pete Hammond; Hollywood Wiretap

Although most pundits are now fairly certain the line up of contenders for the 2006 awards race is locked, we should remember it is still only September. Even though most of the major festivals are over, for your consideration ad buys are being placed in the trades and the Q&A train has left the station, there is still the possibility of a late entry getting into the crowded field.

Of course there is precedent for this. Two years ago, eventual Best Picture Oscar victor, "Million Dollar Baby" had not even been officially announced as a 2004 release. Warner Bros. didn't do that until September 30th and the film wasn't screened for select press until mid-November when its heavy courtship with Oscar began in earnest. Ever since then, crafty producers have dreamed of coming up with their own "Million Dollar Baby," a stealth campaign that takes the media and industry by surprise and upsets the entire rhythm of the awards dance.

Is that scenario in the cards for David Fincher's "Zodiac?" This adaptation of the Robert Graysmith book about the notorious Zodiac serial killer who roamed San Francisco in the 60s and 70s is currently scheduled to open through domestic distributor Paramount on January 19, 2007 (Warner Bros. is handling the international release).

Fincher is now completing editing and mixing and the film should be pretty much wrapped in a couple of weeks. Sources are saying it is brilliantly made with great performances across the board. The cast includes Jake Gyllenhaal, Robert Downey Jr., Mark Ruffalo and Anthony Edwards. And even though Fincher's hard edged previous films ("Fight Club," "Panic Room," "Se7en") have received a grand total of 2 Academy nods in tech categories, this is said to be the one that could change that pattern.

That is, if "Zodiac" receives a qualifying run in December ahead of its wide January release. If it has to wait until next year, the odds are long since January films are a distant memory come nomination time. But hope remains that Fincher's film will still be a part of this year's kudos story. We have been told that it is a complex situation and there are "discussions that are probably going to take place."

One hurdle may be that Paramount really doesn't need another picture going for the gold this year since they already have "World Trade Center" and the upcoming Dreamworks'films "Flags Of Our Fathers" (Oct 20) and "Dreamgirls" (Dec 21). And although it is a completely separate entity, specialty division Paramount Vantage has a major contender in Alejandro Gonzalez Inarittu's "Babel" (Oct 27).

Further, "Zodiac" co-producer Mike Medavoy who runs Phoenix Pictures, the production entity behind the movie, has two other films of his own to deal with in this week's "All The King's Men" and December's anticipated Renee Zellweger drama, "Miss Potter" for The Weinstein Company.

But if "Zodiac" really does deliver the goods as those few who have seen it believe, then how can it be denied a passport to the Kodak? After all, remember 1974. One studio accounted for three, count 'em , "three" of the five Best Picture Oscar nominations. The movies were "The Godfather Part II," "Chinatown" and "The Conversation." The studio was, you guessed it, Paramount.

Back to the man behind that now legendary "Million Dollar Baby" campaign. Clint Eastwood is creating his own news again this year. Not only is his October 20th World War II epic "Flags Of Our Fathers" imminent, it also has a companion film told from the Japanese point of view, "Letters From Iwo Jima." Apparently Clint would like to see it released in 2006 as well, according to published reports - and no less an authority than the Internet Movie Data Base which has it dated as Dec '06.

This last fact has been picked up by some Oscar-watchers as confirmation that the film will indeed be competing "against" Paramount and Dreamworks' "Flags." Complicating matters though is the fact that "Letters" is being distributed domestically by Warner Bros. (for now at least) and sources there tell us they are only seeing the film for the first time this week and have not yet decided when it will be released but that it will "not" be in 2006. Sometime in the first quarter of 2007 is most likely according to a studio exec who adds that they want to do what is best for the film and it's relation to "Flags."

Ironically, Warner Bros., with its own slate of potential contenders – including "The Good German" (Dec 8 ), "The Blood Diamond" (Dec 15), and "We Are Marshall" (Dec 22) - may find itself in the same boat as Paramount and could choose not to look for another December entry to muddy the competition waters.

But if that's what Clint wants for Christmas, well who knows?

Paramount and Warners, oddly, are the strange bedfellows this year, joined at the hip on both "Zodiac" and "Letters from Iwo Jima," and what they finally decide could have a major impact on an increasingly intriguing race.

And there's one more potential Oscar connection between the two studios: Warner Bros.' impressive "The Departed," directed by long-time Oscar bridesmaid Martin Scorsese, was finally unveiled for press earlier this week and many observers, including this one, are calling it a legitimate Best Picture contender. It was produced by Brad Pitt, Graham King and get this, Paramount chief Brad Grey(!). What an Oscar night it would be if Paramount's Grey were to bring home the gold for Warner Bros.

The prognosticators are drooling with anticipation.

[SiliasRuby]

I saw a sneak preview test screening of this tonight and while it was long (2 hous and 45 minutes) it flew by like nothing. Really impressed with it, God, what a rush it is. Let me tell you all, Fincher IS Officially Back, with a one two knock out punch. I'll give ya more later, let it mull over me and think about it some more.

[Pozer]

dammit i missed the screening of this last night in la.  it was sent out as 'untitled' but i had a feeling it would indeed be this from the description.  there're reviews from it over at aintitcool.  soo upset.

[SiliasRuby]

dammit i missed the screening of this last night in la.  it was sent out as 'untitled' but i had a feeling it would indeed be this from the description.  there're reviews from it over at aintitcool.  soo upset.

Man you really definitely missed out. The opening 20 minutes completely sucks you in and does not let you go until the end.

[killafilm]

Where are these screenings at? And is it through the screening exchange? I want in, even though I've been working like 18 hour days and wouldn't be able to attend, still.

[SiliasRuby]

I weas hanging aroun  LA near amoeba and they gave me a piece of paper for a private test screening, it's all a luck of the draw.