Is Paramount Balking on Fincher's Elliot Ness Flick Due to a Dislike of the Director?
Seems there is some bad blood flowing somewhere
Recently there has been a lot of negative news surrounding the relationship between Paramount Pictures and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button director David Fincher. Earlier this year there were rumors floating around the studio wasn't happy with the length of Button as it was coming in around three hours (it will be released at 166 minutes). There was a falling out of the "Heavy Metal" project, which Fincher was set to produce for Paramount, but that fell through with the reasons being documented over here.
Even more recently the New York Post ran a piece detailing the following incident between Fincher and one-time Paramount exec John Goldwyn:
David Fincher is not helping his movie "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" with his imperious ways. "We are working our asses off trying to get Oscar nominations, and he is so abusive that it's crushing," said an insider at Paramount. "Whatever we do, it's not enough." After an LA screening, Fincher was rude to John Goldwyn, who was running Paramount in the early '90s when the movie, based on a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald, was first in development. After Goldwyn congratulated Fincher, "he hit Goldwyn in the chest with his hand and hurt him and said, 'That's for you, for not greenlighting the movie when you had a chance.' " The picture, which shows Brad Pitt aging backward, relies on computerized effects that didn't exist 15 years ago. Our insider said, "If we never hear the name David Fincher again, it will be too soon." A Paramount rep said Fincher was in Britain and couldn't be reached.
And now, Entertainment Weekly is reporting on how Paramount has been slow to pull the trigger on Ness, a film about famed Al Capone adversary Eliot Ness with Matt Damon, Casey Affleck and Rachel McAdams set to star. Word is "Damon and Affleck are ready to go, and that McAdams has expressed interest, but Paramount has yet to pull the proverbial trigger." Why is this newsworthy? Because Paramount's rights to the project expire on December 15.
For what it's worth the studio told EW they had just received the script by Ehren Kruger (The Ring) and will make a decision before rights run out, but I can't help but wonder if there are backroom meetings wondering if the studio is ready for another film with Fincher, that is if any of the documented stories above are actually true.
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