Following the back-to-back productions of The Social Network and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, director David Fincher has been taking his time in settling on his next project.  He’s been developing a remake of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea at Disney for years, and the project finally started to gain traction earlier this year with Fincher courting Brad Pitt as his star.  However, Pitt ultimately passed on the role in favor of David Ayer’s WWII film Fury, leaving Fincher’s 20,000 Leagues without a star or a greenlight.

Despite these two crucial facts, we learned last month that Australia had agreed to an enormous tax incentive ($22.5 million) for Fincher to shoot 20,000 Leagues down under, making the remake that much more attractive for Disney.  Now word comes that since the film still doesn’t have a lead actor, potential production has been pushed to 2014.  Hit the jump for more.

At some point, Australian firstborn children are going to be offered so that the country can get David Fincher‘s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.  Disney had previously asked for a 30% subsidy location rebate similar to what Fox got for The Wolverine.  Today, Deadline is reporting that Australia will make a $22.5 million one-off payment to get the project, which could create up to 2,000 jobs for the country.

Despite this overture, Disney hasn’t given Fincher a greenlight on his blockbuster feature because it still lacks a lead actor.  Brad Pitt had been circling the lead role of Captain Nemo, but ultimately passed.  Fincher was recently looking at Channing Tatum, but the actor has an incredibly busy schedule.  Until Fincher can find an available movie star, 20,000 Leagues is going to have to wait in dry dock.  In the meantime, Fincher might pursue Gone Girl or The Girl Who Played with Fire.

Writer/director Shane Carruth is one of the more enigmatic filmmakers working today.  After bursting onto the scene with his cerebral Sundance hit Primer in 2004, Carruth seemingly disappeared.  He finally emerged late last year by announcing that he had completed production on his Primer follow-up, Upstream Color, and that film was set to debut at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival.  Those looking for a more straightforward plot with Upstream Color were sorely disappointed, as Carruth crafted a film that was quite possibly even more complex than Primer, but it’s an unendingly fascinating piece of work that requires repeat viewings.

In the interim between the release of Primer and Upstream Color, rumors started to surface about an ambitious sci-fi project that Carruth was working on called A Topiary.  The filmmaker spent years developing the wildly ambitious pic but had trouble gaining financing, and he has seemingly given up getting the project off the ground altogether.  However, in a recent profile on Carruth, some highly intriguing plot details regarding A Topiary have been revealed.  Hit the jump to read on.

Fans of David Fincher have been itching to see a new feature film from the director since 2011’s release of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and we received a fairly promising update on his potential next project just yesterday.  The filmmaker has been developing a big-budget remake of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea for quite some time with an eye towards making it his next film, and yesterday we learned that Disney is being wooed by a major tax credit to shoot the film in Australia this year.  Though Fincher was hoping to nab frequent collaborator Brad Pitt as his star, the actor had yet to officially sign on to the project.

Now a new report has surfaced with plenty of updates on all things Fincher, including word that he’s looking at a number of actors—including Channing Tatum—to possibly lead 20,000 Leagues given that Pitt has passed, that he may have to push production on the remake back to next year and film something else in the interim, and the possibility that he might not helm any of season two of the Netflix series House of Cards.  Hit the jump to read on.

David Fincher will require a massive budget if/when he gets 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea into production.  Fincher courted his Benjamin Button/Fight Club/Seven star Brad Pitt to headline, partly to secure a big name that would push Disney to greenlight the project.  Pitt even said he’d love to do it if “schedule and time allocation” allowed.  Contrary to reports posted earlier today, Pitt is not set to star.  However, Disney may have found a way to forge on financially with or without Pitt.  The Australian government is ready to offer a 30% tax rebate worth almost $20 million if Disney shoots the remake Down Under.  Hit the jump for details.

For those who don’t know, David Fincher got his start directing commercials and music videos such as Madonna‘s “Vogue” and Nine Inch Nails‘ “Only” just to name a few.  Justin Timberlake hasn’t recorded an album since 2006′s FutureSex/LoveSounds, but now he’s returned to music with The 20/20 Experience, which will be released on March 19th.  The first single off the album is “Suit & Tie” featuring Jay-Z, and Fincher has directed the music video, which you can now watch online.  It’s a good song, and Fincher has brought some great visuals that really helps the music pop.

Hit the jump to check out the music video.

This weekend, Netflix premiered House of Cards.  All of House of Cards.  It was a bold strategy that signaled that not only was Netflix now in the television business (even though it isn’t their first original series), but that they had quality programming on the level of HBO.  House of Cards is a show with the same level of plotting, character development, twists, and turns that we’ve come to expect from the celebrated premium channel.  In some ways, House of Cards is even better than some of HBO’s recent offerings.  Beau Willimon‘s adaptation of the BBC series is radical not only in its distribution, but also in how it spits in the face of those who claim that they need characters to “root for”.

A Social Network reunion is in the making.  Though David Fincher famously made his feature directorial debut on Alien 3, the filmmaker first made a name for himself in the world of music videos.  He was responsible for a number of clips, including Madonna’s “Vogue” and “Express Yourself,” Billy Idol’s “Cradle of Love,” and Aerosmith’s “Janie’s Got a Gun.”  Now he’s wading back into that world to help herald the much-anticipated return of Justin Timberlake, as The Playlist reports that Fincher is directing the music video for Timberlake’s new single “Suit & Tie.”

Production on the spot actually began last week, and Jay-Z appears on the track as well so one assumes he’ll make an appearance in the video too.  This is Fincher’s first music video since helming Nine Inch Nails’ “Only,” and it’s hard to argue against another Fincher/Timberlake collaboration.  Hit the jump to listen to the song and to take a look at some of Fincher’s previous music video work.  Timberlake’s new album The 20/20 Experience will hit stores on March 19th.

If The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo had been the smashing success Sony hoped for, we would probably be getting the sequel, The Girl Who Played with Fire, by the end of this year.  Surprisingly, audiences didn’t want to watch “The Feel Bad Movie of Christmas”, and while the film managed to gross $232 million worldwide, it was still a disappointment when you consider the $90 million budget.  Sony wants to continue The Millennium Series, but the studio is carefully considering how to proceed.

Hit the jump for what the future may hold for Lisbeth Salander.

When last we reported on the adaptation of Gillian Flynn’s novel Gone Girl, it was to say that Reese Witherspoon would produce the 20th Century Fox acquisition.  Now it sounds like director David Fincher (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) is in talks to helm.  The book centers on a man whose wife disappears on their fifth wedding anniversary, only to have all roads point to him as the woman’s killer.  Author Flynn is also handling the screenplay adaptation. There is no word on whether Witherspoon would also star.  Hit the jump for more on Gone Girl. 

And the director speculation for Star Wars: Episode VII marches on.  If you thought actor Jason Fleymng’s recent bean-spilling statement regarding Matthew Vaughn as the director of the new Star Wars film would put an end to the rumors and murmurs, think again.  We’ve seen a number of names pop up as being in contention for the task of helming the upcoming untitled Return of the Jedi sequel, and it seems like we’ve seen just as many filmmakers come out and publicly turn the job down.  One such name that has previously spoken publicly about the new trilogy is Jon Favreau, and it appears that he and David Fincher are the latest filmmakers to be added to the growing “contender” list.  Hit the jump for more. 

Those hoping for another Brad Pitt/David Fincher collaboration in the near future have reason to keep their fingers crossed.  Fincher has been developing a big-budget remake of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea at Disney for quite some time, and last month we reported that the Mouse House was set to take a close look at the project for greenlight consideration while Fincher was courting Pitt for a lead role.  Now Pitt himself has spoken up about the prospect, and he sounds enthusiastic about teaming up with his Fight Club director for a fourth time.  Hit the jump to see what he had to say.

Netflix, the ever-evolving DVD and streaming service, has really raised the bar on web series and online original content recently, both with the news of its resurrection of the beloved Arrested Development and its upcoming David Fincher adaptation of Michael Dobbs‘ House of Cards series.

In anticipation of House of Cards‘ release, Netflix has created character profiles that say something about each, while also revealing their true nature.  Hit the jump for the pics and the trailer.  The show stars Kevin Spacey, Robin Wright, Kate Mara, Corey Stoll, Michael Kelly, Sakina Jaffrey, Kristen Connolly, Sebastian Arcelus, Boris McGiver, Constance Zimmer, Jayne Atkinson, Michel Gill, and Reg E. Cathey.  All 13 episode of House of Cards premiere on February 1, 2013.

Criterion always delights, and recently they’ve put out two cult classics: David Fincher’s The Game, and Franc Roddam’s Quadrophenia. The former stars Michael Douglas and Sean Penn and came between Se7en and Fight Club in Fincher’s career, and as he made it for a studio (Gramercy) that wasn’t long for distribution it led to it having a tortured home video history – hence it’s cult status. The latter features a soundtrack by The Who, but didn’t star them, so it’s known mostly by fans of the band. Our reviews of both movies on Blu-ray follow after the jump.

The launch trailer for the highly anticipated video game sequel Halo 4 has been released.  The clip was produced by David Fincher and directed by visual effects vet Tim Miller—the guy responsible for that fantastic opening credits sequence in Fincher’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.  The Halo 4 trailer is a pretty impressive piece of work, showing off some great effects and intriguing visual cues.  The piece briefly explores the backstory of Master Chief and provides a glimpse of the new threat he/gamers will face in Halo 4.

This doesn’t mark the end of the collaboration between Miller and Fincher, as Miller is also set to co-direct the Fincher-produced CG animated adaptation of The Goon.  Fincher, Miller, and co-director Jeff Fowler recently launched a kickstarter campaign for the project accompanied by a humorous video from the trio.  For now, hit the jump to check out the latest Miller/Fincher creation by way of the launch trailer for Halo 4.  The game hits stores on November 6th, at which point it will make an insane amount of money.