I’m sure you’ve already read our reporting on David Fincher’s upcoming English-language remake of “Squid Game”, with much assistance from the always reliable Jeff Sneider. We now have a major update via The Playlist’s Rodrigo Perez.
Perez, in essence, is very much confirming the previous intel. Apparently, Fincher’s interest in making this one piqued back in 2021, which is when “Squid Game” became this massive hit on Netflix. This led to Fincher putting his “Chinatown” prequel on the backburner and focusing on “Squid Game”.
Obviously, Netflix won’t comment, and never really has, but Perez adds that Fincher’s project has writer Dennis Kelly working on the script. It is, presumably, supposed to be his next directing gig, although I keep hearing “Strangers” is also a possibility.
Last year, Sneider reported, via his and John Rocha’s Hot Mic podcast, that Fincher agreed Netflix’s offer to helm the project. It was a rather strange development. It’s an odd pairing to say the least, but it could work only for the fact that, much like many of Fincher’s best films, “Squid Game” deals as much with psychological violence as it does with the physical kind.
Word to Fincher: Let’s not do this. “Squid Game” is already very popular and was basically a sanitized version of “Battle Royale".” If Netflix wants Fincher to keep busy and pile up some projects, then just let him make another season of “Mindhunter” or a whole other original film.
Fincher has delved into remake territory only a few times in his career. He directed the U.S. version of the ultra-popular Swedish film/novel, “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” — that turned out to be a very good adaptation. Whereas, a couple of years ago, he tried to remake Hitchcock’s “Strangers on a Train” with Ben Affleck, and that one has now migrated over to Netflix.
Regardless, whether he chooses “Strangers” or “Squid Games,” it does look as though Fincher’s next project will be a remake. However, knowing Fincher’s history with these sorts of things, it wouldn’t surprise me if he ditches both of these projects and suddenly hops onboard another thing.