David Fincher To Direct Graphic Novel Adaptation Black Hole
Update: Neil Gaiman said on hispersonal blogyesterday that he is still co-writing the Black Hole script with Roger Avary. Seems rather stoked on Fincher’s involvement as well. Thanks to /Film reader ‘Nancy.’
“David Finchertackling STDs, not like herpes,worse,” is the imagined, beaded brow pitch to the studio. It worked. The director of the Oscar-shunned modern masterpieceZodiac,as well asFight Club,is attached to direct a film based on the comics-turned-acclaimed graphic novel,Black Hole, byCharles Burns. Brad Pitt’sPlan Bis producing the project, but like DiCaprio’sAkira, no official word if Pitt is involved to star.Roger AvaryandNeil Gaimanwere set to adapt the screenplay in 2006, but no word if Fincher is doing his own thing here.
Set in the ’70s,Black Holeis a 12-issue comic that followed teenagers who spread “the Bug,” a fictional, incurable STD that causes the sexually-active to develop horrific physical deformities, as well as those who didn’t catch it but reacted to the plague. As you might expect, this turns the infected teens into social outcasts, and theplot synopsisat publisher Pantheon Graphics reads, “What we become witness to instead is a fascinating and eerie portrait of the nature of high school alienation itself – the savagery, the cruelty, the relentless anxiety and ennui, the longing for escape. And then the murders start.”
Fincher’s next theatrical release is December’sThe Curious Case of Benjamin Buttonstarring Brad Pitt, which is already receiving almightybuzz. Unlike Paul Thomas Anderson’sThere Will Be Blood, I don’t think Fincher has crafted his end-all-be-all American classic yet. And whileBlack Holesounds too fun and twisted to be it, I hope he’ll next be gearing up for the serious sci-fi epicRendezvous with Rama, one of several projects he’s latched to, another being the Eliot Ness serial killer flickTorso. But a FincherGhost World, are you friggin' kidding? The eclipse has played into some strangely bi-polar news today, and this may be the peak of awesome.
Of note,Alexandre Ajawas originally on board to direct this, but he has other fish to fry (and can I just add that amere two/Film comments for his upcomingPiranha 3Dperiodically had me questioning life?).
Along withBlankets,Black Holehas been in my “graphic novel requisite procrastination” queue on Amazon for at least six months. I didn’t realize it was originally published by the long-goneKitchen Sink Press, a company I fondly remember back in the day when I bought comics, if only for seeing itsCrowtitles amongst the latestThe MaxxandPitt. Damn, this is going to be cool flick, nostalgia can take a hike. And shout out toParamount Picturesfor booking Fincher for three flicks in a row now. That rocks.
Discuss: WithBlack Hole, will David Fincher do for sex what Darren Afonofsky did for hard drugs and Keith David inRequiem for a Dream?
