As far back as 1999, Fincher passed on the chance to direct a Spider-Man movie, and then he further had conversations about it in the aughts, but, again, backed out.
Back in 2011, while promoting Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, he told Gizmodo; “My impression of what Spider-Man could be is very different from what Sam [Raimi] did. I think the reason he directed that movie was because he wanted to do the Marvel comic superhero.”
He continued; “I was never interested in the genesis story. I couldn’t get past a guy getting bit by a red and blue spider. It was just a problem… It was not something that I felt I could do straight-faced. I wanted to start with Gwen Stacy…and I wanted to kill Gwen Stacy.”
Now in a French interview with Canal Plus, he not only tackles the Spider-Man opportunities he rejected, but the superhero genre as a whole, which, it seems, he’s not too keen on:
“Spider-Man was interesting. I was interested in the Gwen Stacy story. That was kind of it. I liked the arc of that tragedy. I was one of the 18 idiots who had discussions about directing Spider-Man”
When asked about whether he’d want to direct a superhero movie, Fincher was rather blunt, giving a short and sweet answer:
“it’s not a sandbox that has a lot of room left for exploring, to me.
And we’re better off for that.
Fincher will stick to what he’s good at, which is these darkly grim thrillers that have made him one of the great American directors of his generation. Up next for him is “The Killer,” set for a November release.
Over these last few years, I’ve been updating a list of all the directors that have publicly criticized superhero movies. We can now add Fincher’s name to this very impressive list that includes Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Denis Villeneuve, Bong Joon-ho, Lucrecia Martel, David Cronenberg, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, David Fincher, Paul Verehoeven, Terry Gilliam, James Cameron Ridley Scott, James Gray, Jane Campion, James Mangold, Martin McDonagh, Luc Besson, William Friedkin, Ken Loach, and John Woo.
Criterion's December lineup has some great additions to the library, but the title that jumped out at me is Werner Herzog's "Grizzly Man," which officially joins the Collection on December 8.