David Fincher has been in conversation with the press ahead of the release of the 4K remastered re-release of his breakout hit Se7en. In a conversation with Variety, he revealed that he was one of the names considered by Warner Bros to direct one of the Harry Potter films. However, his "creepy" version wasn't exactly what the studio had in mind.
That the studio once considered Fincher for a franchise that had other big names like Chris Columbus, Alfonso Cuarón, Mike Newell, and David Yates directing one or more films isn't a surprise. Fincher has proved his versatility with films like The Social Network and the relatively more family-friendly The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.
Cuaron, for example, usually known for his gritty, serious films made for grownups, once made a children's film named A Little Princess.
Fincher shared that a “clean Hollywood version” wasn't his cup of tea. The vision he had in mind was quite interesting. "I was asked to come in and talk to them about how I would do Harry Potter. I remember saying, ‘I just don’t want to do the clean Hollywood version of it. I want to do something that looks a lot more like Withnail and I (a British dark comedy that enjoys a cult status), and I want it to be kind of creepy."
But Warner Bros' vision was more along the lines of "Tom Brown's School Days by way of Oliver,” according to Fincher.
Fincher is not the first director to have a completely different idea from that of the studio for the Harry Potter films based on J.K. Rowling's books.
Previously, directors like Steven Spielberg, Guillermo del Toro, M. Night Shyamalan, Jonathan Demme, Terry Gilliam, and Rob Reiner were considered, but a collaboration fell through due to various reasons.
Meanwhile, Fincher, who last directed the Netflix original The Killer, with Michael Fassbender, is said to be working on an English version of the popular Squid Game series. He is also attached as director to a prequel series of Roman Polanski's classic mystery thriller Chinatown.