Zodiac

[Dark Donnie]

The release date is being juggled around I read either Mid Summer of possibly Fall.

 

[Hunter Rider]

http://zodiacfilm.blogspot.com/

Apparently the trailer will be with Mi-3 and the reported release date is 11th on November

*Thanks to darkdonnie for the heads up

 

[Hunter Rider]

http://www.hollywood-elsewhere.com/

Thanks to green for this

Script review

The last truly exceptional hunt-for-a-serial-killer movie was David Fincher's Se7en. And the next one, I'm fairly convinced, is going to be Fincher's Zodiac (Paramount, 11.10).
I'm basing this on a recent read of James Vanderbilt's script, which runs 150-plus pages. This persuades me that what I heard last week is true: Zodiac is going to be a three-hour movie, or close to it.

Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo in David Fincher's Zodiac (Paramount, 11.10)
Scripts never really tell you that much, but reading Zodiac planted an idea that Fincher is again pushing the thriller boundary. Not just in the tradition of Se7en but also Alan Parker's Angel Heart, another chasing-a-monster film that ended with something pretty startling.
Zodiac is based on two best-sellers by Robert Graysmith, "Zodiac" and "Zodiac Unmasked: The Identity of America's Most Elusive Serial Killer Revealed", which are first-hand accounts about the hunt for the Zodiac killer who terrified the San Francisco area in 1968 and '69.
The chief Zodiac hunters in Fincher's film (as they were in actual life) are Gray- smith, a San Francisco Chronicle cartoonist at the time (Jake Gyllenhaal), and a blunt-spoken, never-say-die San Francisco detective named Dave Toschi (Mark Ruffalo).
Toschi is understood to have been the real-life model that Steve McQueen based his tough-nut San Francisco detective on in the 1968 Peter Yates film Bullitt.
And of course, the Zodiac killer was the model for Andy Robinson's psycho killer in Dirty Harry , the 1971 Don Siegel-Clint Eastwood classic...right down to the Zodiac claim about wanting to kill a busload of school children.

Zodiac is partly about the thrill and fascination of the hunt (the scores of hints and clues that pile up are more and more fascinating as the story moves along), and partly about how the complex, seemingly never-ending nature of the case makes Graysmith and Toschi start to go a bit nuts.
Is there such a thing as being too determined to stop evil? At what point do you ease up and say, "I've done all I can." Is it always essential to finish what you've started? Should never-say-die always be the motto, even at great personal cost?
Zodiac isn't just about sleuthing. Deep down I think it's a metaphor piece about obsessions wherever you find them, and how the never-quit theme applies to heavily-driven creative types (novelists, painters, architects, musicians) as much as cops or cartoonists or stamp collectors or baseball-card traders.
Zodiac and Se7en have at least a couple of things in common: both are heavily focused on the bottled-up emotions and personal frustrations of their two main protagonists, and both films end on a note in which the "crime doesn't pay" motto doesn't exactly ring out from the belltower.

Zodiac director David Fincher during filming; laughing Gyllenhaal in b.g.
Let's just say it: these are two catch-the-bad-guy movies in which the good guys try like hell, but they can't quite manage to be McQueen or Eastwood in the end.
Partly because the up-and-down life of a cop generally isn't that heroic or simple. And because Fincher would probably have trouble staying awake if somebody forced him to direct a Bullitt or a Dirty Harry.
Fincher and screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker ended Se7en with a mind-blowing twist in which the killer won and the good guys lost, and in such a way that the final fate of the killer didn't matter as much as the fact that his vision (which had a certain moral foundation) ended up being fulfilled.
The more I think about Se7en, the more certain I am that it was and is a truly brilliant cop thriller. Not just in the way the story was put together and paid off, but because it echoed a certain clouds-are-forming, it's-all-starting-to-rot-from-within attitude...a kind of geiger-counter reading of the despair in the air in 1994 and '95, when Se7en was made and released.

I attended a Writers Guild event last night that celebrated the 101 Greatest Screenplays ever written, and bless their hearts but the WGA voters were blind as bats for not including Se7en.
I'm not going to spill the Zodiac finale in any detail, but anyone who's read even a little bit about the the hunt for the Zodiac killer knows the culprit was never charged or convicted, although his more ardent pursuers were convinced that he was a pudgy alcoholic and an ex-school teacher named Arthur Leigh Allen, who died in 1992.
The script uses a substitute name instead of Allen's. It wouldn't be that big of a deal to mention it, but I'm trying to go lightly here.
Graysmith is the best part Gyllenhaal has ever had, and I'm including Jack Twist in this equation. If he does it right he'll generate a lot of heat for himself, and I can't see how he wouldn't.
Graysmith is a very strongly written guy with a lot of struggle and frustration inside, and the pressure on him just builds and builds. The coup de grace comes at the end when Graysmith delivers a spellbinding 12-page oratory that ties up all the loose ends. (I was reminded of Simon Oakland's this-is-what-actually-happened speech at the end of Psycho.)

Downey, Gyllenhaal
Robert Downey, Jr. has several good scenes as a Chronicle reporter named Avery. It seems at first as if he'll be a prominent costar along with Gyllenhaal and Ruffalo, but nope. Anthony Edwards, as Toschi's partner, has a smaller role than Downey.
Dermot Mulroney, Chloe Sevigny, Ione Skye, Donal Logue and Brian Cox have supporting roles. The IMDB says Cox plays famed San Francisco attorney Melvin Belli, but my script doesn't even have Belli in it.

 

[Dark Donnie]

Oldman was slated to play Belli, then rumors were he dropped out and Cox joined....I wonder what is going to actually come of it. Nice post Hunter!

 

[Carmine Falcone]

Oldman was slated to play Belli, then rumors were he dropped out and Cox joined....I wonder what is going to actually come of it. Nice post Hunter!

It's Cox:

It's from this video about Final Cut Studio with David Fincher, there are some bits of footage on the background. The rest of the video sucks. It's one big commerial and I can't stand the music

 

[Cinemaman]

Zodiac looks like really good movue.

Fincher is one of my favorite directors, I love Se7en, Fight Club and the Game.

 

[green]

billboard

http://www.mcnblogs.com/thehotblog/archives/2006/10/new_outdoor_fro.html

 

[Sava]

where is my god damn trailer

 

[Carmine Falcone]

Nice billboard.

 

[Hunter Rider]

The billboard is very cool but it's time for the trailer t:

 

[Cinemaman]

where is my god damn trailer

Wait for Nvember.

BTW, the billboard looks very intersting

 

[Octoberist]

what is paramount doing? are they stupid? Sounds like they're 'iffy' on this movie, lameo

 

[BT18]

I really wish it didn't star Jake Gyllenhaal

 

[Cinemaman]

^^^

Why not? He is very good actor and I'd like to see something new from him.

 

[zer00]

I really wish it didn't star Jake Gyllenhaal

We all wish you didn't post. But you do. And we deal with it.

 

[Octoberist]

OMG. Jake is a good actor and now he's being labeled as "Sir Gay Cowboy". Damn!

 

[Hunter Rider]

Poster

 

[Cinemaman]

Oh God, I can kill everybody to just see this f***ing movie!

There is just so much of mystery and I just think it will be one of the best movies next year.

 

[Octoberist]

well, I still don't understand why on Earth they wanted to leave out Fight Club on the poster, which by is probably one of the best movies of the 90s hands down. THAT'S dumb marketing, and honestly, if Paramount's thinking "We don't want to rely so much on Fight Club because we don't want the ads to depend on it", then they need a new marketing team. You milk for what it's worth.

And I hope that they can move the movie at least to March. Janurary? Paramount's on a roll. It's friggin' David Fincher.

 

[Cinemaman]

well, I still don't understand why on Earth they wanted to leave out Fight Club on the poster, which by is probably one of the best movies of the 90s hands down. THAT'S dumb marketing, and honestly, if Paramount's thinking "We don't want to rely so much on Fight Club because we don't want the ads to depend on it", then they need a new marketing team. You milk for what it's worth.

And I hope that they can move the movie at least to March. Janurary? Paramount's on a roll. It's friggin' David Fincher.

I'll agree with you. FC is the best movie of last century and my #1, so it is worth to be put in tagline "from the director of...". I think Paramnount can't realize that FC became famous movie after all this critical negativity, which also disappeared.

Even if I can't wait for this movie, I will again agree with you. March is the best month for so great looking movie like Zodiac. Paramount has very bad marketing strategy for it and this sucks

 

[Octoberist]

yeah, to me March is now considered a safe zone for movies, which Janurary and Feburary still stinks of "Movies that we regret" from studios.

 

[Hunter Rider]

Fight Club is a cult fav as opposed to a massive hit,they chose seven because it's his biggest hit and Panic Room as it was his most recent and ppl will likely remember it

 

[Cinemaman]

Fight Club is a cult fav as opposed to a massive hit,they chose seven because it's his biggest hit and Panic Room as it was his most recent and ppl will likely remember it

Se7en was great movie and I am agreed with you there, but Panic Room isn't so good example of quality.

FC proved that critics can be wrong and made people re-understand itself as movie with very smart direction, which makes a lot of sense.

And why people don't remember such movie like FC? I thought almost every cinema goer loved it.

 

[Octoberist]

but which movie is David remembered most for? Se7en...and Fight Club.

Panic Room was just his most mainstream movie. In the long run, which movie had the biggest influence? And most recent? 2002? Hoy!

Everyone that I know loves Fight Club. To me, it's almost beyond a 'cult classic' now.

But..
I see what you're saying, Hunter. Honestly, bring this up to your friends and see what they say.

 

[Hunter Rider]

Se7en was great movie and I am agreed with you there, but Panic Room isn't so good example of quality.

FC proved that critics can be wrong and made people re-understand itself as movie with very smart direction, which makes a lot of sense.

And why people don't remember such movie like FC? I thought almost every cinema goer loved it.

Like i said it isn;t about quality it's about the fact Panic Room was the most recent and fresher in the regular movie goer's mind

Fight Club like i said is a cult fav but not a movie that the regular audience go ga ga over