David Fincher’s Netflix Contract Extended for Three More Years

David Fincher’s latest film, “The Killer,” is available to stream on Netflix. The film was, in very limited fashion, theatrically released in late October. That’s usually how it works with Netflix, they don’t really give their films expanded theatrical windows.

Fincher has had a few multi-year deals with Netflix, with the latest one supposed to end in 2024. Well, not anymore. Fincher is telling Premiere Magazine that the contract has been extended for another three years. It’s supposed to now end in 2027.

Fincher has been all about Netflix for close to ten years now, delving into the streaming game full-on, creating shows such as “House of Cards,” “Mindhunter“ “Love, Death + Robots” — not to mention two films, “Mank” and “The Killer.”

And yet, in an interview with Le Monde, Fincher seemed to firmly believe that Netflix was the best place in Hollywood to make movies:

They adopted an industry standard that made sense to filmmakers. Netflix has by far the best “quality control” in all of Hollywood.

With the studio system closing down its doors on many "auteur" filmmakers, Fincher, with his ambitious, well-known needs, saw this lack of opportunity as a way to reinvent the way he can get his films made.

Is Fincher still making cinema? I think so, kind of, but don’t tell that to Cannes director, Thierry Fremaux. In a recently unearthed video from 2020, Fremaux was of the belief that Fincher and cinema no longer co-exist:

Fincher has left cinema. Fincher now works for streamers where he’s directing incredible stuff. I tried to explain this to him, modestly, obviously, that he doesn’t exist anymore. At least for us. For reasons left up to his own liking, he wants his creative freedom, he doesn’t want to fight with studio heads, his films tend to be very expensive, but I’d love for him to come back to cinema. He’s one of the greats.

Fincher is a world-class filmmaker. The question remains whether “Mank” and “The Killer” will get lost in Netflix’s never-ending algorithms. I don’t believe they will. Fincher’s an auteur, and when you’ve attained the status that he has, plenty of movie lovers will continue to seek out your films, wherever they might be located.