David Fincher On Star Wars Episode VII

Gone Girl begins menacing moviegoers this coming weekend and its singularly dark director David Fincher (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) is talking–because that’s what you do when you have a new film coming out. Gone Girl has star power and great pedigree–the Gillian Flynn novel on which it’s based was a runaway bestseller. The movie is sure to be a hit and it might just be a classic of it’s kind–a cynosure of suspense, intrigue and fear. But what Gone Girl won’t be is Star Wars. Because there’s only one franchise in the world (or out of it, if you prefer) like Star Wars. Fincher actually had a chance to direct Star Wars Episode VII but it wasn’t a fit for him, he reveals. So he was gone boy.

Fincher told TotalFilm that he talked with Star Wars producer Kathy Kennedy about directing Star Wars Episode VII, before J.J. Abrams came on board for the space epic. Fincher said that of all the Star Wars movies he personally liked The Empire Strikes Back was the best. Had he directed Episode VII he’d have pointed the franchise in the darker direction of Strikes Back. But “I’m sure the people paying for it would be like, ‘No! You can’t do that! We want it like the other one with all the creatures!'” Fincher told the magazine. The Disney-owned Lucasfilm isn’t the same, the director implies, as the independent Lucasfilm that made The Empire Strikes Back. So he opted for something that very naturally meshes with his own dark vision–Gone Girl.