The series will reteam Fincher with Gone Girl author Gillian Flynn, the pair obviously having gotten along during the film's production. Utopia is a remake of Dennis Kelly's UK TV series which revolved around fans of a graphic novel that seemed to predict future events. When a group of people uncover the author's sequel, they are suddenly pursued by a mysterious organization known as The Network while trying to prevent the calamities the manuscript predicts.
Fincher has dabbled in television before, the first two House of Cards episodes and exec-producing the Netflix series, but this is obviously a much larger commitment. It mirrors the ambitious effort of Cary Fukunaga on HBO's True Detective, and having one singular voice was a prime reasons why it achieved such acclaim. Clearly, HBO and Fincher are hoping to reach similar heights.
This will keep Fincher busy for much of next year, but when he's finished there will be options out there. Aaron Sorkin's Steve Jobs biopic is still out there, with Fincher saying it “was definitely a possibility, but it got very sideways very fast”. For now he's all about Utopia and is definitely excited about the opportunity.
Fincher: “I like the world of it. I like the characters – I love Dennis’ [Kelly, creator of the UK show] honesty and affinity for the nerds. I mean, I’ve always been a bit of a junior conspiracy theorist cos I don’t have time to connect them all! But it’s nice to see that somebody has.” [Guardian]
