At one point or another since he broke through with SEVEN way back in 1995, David Fincher has been linked with nearly as many tantalising sounding projects as Guillermo Del Toro…

In a similar situation, unfortunately many of these have failed to come to pass. Two such projects Fincher is linked to as a producer are comic book adaptations of THE GOON and BLACK HOLE. Whilst doing the publicity rounds for THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, Fincher gave updates on both of these projects to website Comingsoon.net. 

Frustratingly, Teaser reels and demonstrations have been online for the planned CG animation of Eric Powell’s Dark Horse comic book THE GOON for quite a few years now but as yet the film adaptation has not materialised despite having Clancy Brown and Paul Giamatti signed as voice talent. The comic follows the exploits of Goon, a muscle bound hardcase and his diminutive sidekick Franky who claim to be the enforcers of feared mobster Labrazio. The two of them get into all manner of slapstick scrapes with the undead. Fincher had this to say:

“Eric’s been working on it and Tim’s been working on it, and Jeff (Fowler), people continue to work on it and refine stuff, but it’s hard for me because I’m in Sweden, so I can’t really make many production meetings, but the attempt is to in January really go out and try and figure out a price that makes sense.” So it sounds like it’s still budget issues keeping us from seeing the thing.

BLACK HOLE is an award winning graphic novel by Charles Burns and is a trickier prospect. The story follows some teenagers who fall prey to an STD that alters them considerably. It’s like THE THING crossed with GOSSIP GIRL. The novel doesn’t really have much in the way of a structure so is probably difficult to get just right. The first attempt at adapting this to film was written by Roger Avary and Neil Gaiman who previously worked together on BEOWULF. Fincher says of the project:

“It’s a really great script by Dante Harper, so the hope is that will win out. It’s so weird. It’s so great, because it would be great to see. It’s a very tough… there’s make-up FX and digital FX that are expensive and to do it right, you gotta do it just right, because it has to challenge your idea of the human body.” So another risky project that isn’t quite dead then…

I’ve been wanting to see these two for some time now but my enthusiasm has waned somewhat due to the length of time we have had to wait, yet there is still hope it seems…

Related reads: Early Test Footage From Comic Book Adaptation THE GOON

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