Last weekend Sony held a big press junket in New York City for director David Fincherâs The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and I got to participate in a press conference with Fincher, Rooney Mara, and Daniel Craig. Click here if you missed it.  As most of you know, Dragon Tattoo is the first in Stieg Larsonâs Millennium trilogy and it centers on a disgraced journalist (Craig) whoâs hired to investigate the mysterious 40-year-old disappearance of a young woman. Mara plays Lisbeth Salander, a brilliant young hacker who teams up with Craig.Shortly after the press conference ended, I got to sit down with Fincher for an exclusive interview. We talked about deleted scenes (the first cut of Dragon Tattoo was 3 hours and seven minutes!), extended cuts, if he would change his previous movies like George Lucas has changed Star Wars, what filmmakers/collaborators he shows his films to first, if he does test screenings or just friends and family screenings, his favorite Star Wars movie, and I got updates on 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Cleopatra and House of Cards. Hit the jump to either read or listen to the interview.As usual, Iâm offering you two ways to get he interview: you can either click here to listen to the audio or the complete transcript is below. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is now playing.Collider: I heard that your original cut on this was over three hours.David Fincher: It was three hours and seven minutes. Exactly, and youâre releasing aâ¦Fincher: Two hour and fortyâ¦well, again, I have to count titles contractually. But if youâre talking about the movie, the movieâs two hours and thirty-three minutes. Either way, there was a lot of talk about you debating how to cut twenty minutes out of the movie.Fincher: Somebody asked me, âAt what point did you decide the movie should be two hours and thirty three minutes?â And I said, âAt the point in time where it was three hours.â It was pretty obvious when you looked at it that we could sustain a lot of interest, but I didnât think we could sustain three hours worth of interest. Are you going to release the additional footage?Fincher: Nope. So that footage is never going to see the light of day?Fincher: No, I donât believe in that. Iâm a final cut director. Oliver Stoneâs a final cut director. Why would JFK, the one we saw, be different from the one thatâs on the DVD? Tell your story, man. 100%, except that studios today release extended cuts and unrated editions.Fincher: I donât believe in that. I think thatâs like jerk-off land. Put your best foot forward. Okay, let me ask you this, Lord of the Rings, the theatrical versions are fantastic; the extended versions for the fans are amazing.Fincher: Iâve never seen them, the extended versions.I would argue that the extended version of Fellowship of the Ring is better than the theatrical version because you get more character stuff and itâs an amazing extended edition. I would imagine for fans of the book, and fans of yours, they would really love to see twenty more minutes of your material. I would argue that a lot of people would like to see the footage.Fincher: And they may, but I took out stuff that I thought was weak. I took out stuff that I didnât think was as good as the other stuff. There were moments that I would have wanted to have had, but it either killed the pace of the thing or it gave you an impression that the movie was starting again. Iâm happy with this version of it. I wonât be re-opening this thirty years from now and re-digitizing it in 8k. Whatâs funny is that you get to my next question, which is: a lot of people have been talking about how George Lucas changes his movies on every release.Fincher: Iâm not into it.With previous films of yours, would you ever go back to any previous film that youâve done and alter something?Fincher: No. So itâs always going to be the way you originally made it?Fincher: For the Blu-ray of Fight Club, there were a couple of shots that once you went to a higher definition, higher resolution delivery system, they just seemed dirtier; they stuck out like sore thumbs. We did a little bit of noise reduction, a little bit of matte painting clean up on a couple of things, but we didnât change the shots; the shots were what they were. Theyâre doing a Blu-ray of The Game and thereâs a lot of stuff I would love to fix, but I just think a movieâs an expression of a time and a place. Itâs where you are in your career, itâs where all the actors are in their careers, itâs San Francisco that fall. I just donât believe in changing that. I agree with you 100%, or if you change it, I think you should always offer the original version in conjunction with the changed version. Fincher: Again, if I was in the position that George Lucas was and I owned the copyrights to all that stuff, I would probably feel differently. Who was the first person that you screen your movies for?Fincher: Usually itâs [film editors] Kirk [Baxter] and Angus [Wall], usually thatâs the first pass and then probably [supervising sound editor] Ren Klyce and then Trent [Reznor] and then it goes to Steven Soderbergh and Gore Verbinski and Mark Romanek. I showed Eric Roth and Robert Towne. Is this just for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo or all of your movies?Fincher: Iâm talking about Dragon Tattoo and Social Network and probably Benjamin Button, maybe not Zodiac. I donât think I showed Eric. Zodiac, we finished and we were sort of on to Benjamin Button, so it was a very rushed process. But Dragon Tattoo and certainly Social Network, those were people I normally sort of lasso and go, âAm I fucking nuts?â How important are friends and family screenings to you? How important are test screenings?Fincher: Well friends and family screenings are more important to me than test screenings, because I think itâs more valuable to have the input of somebody who does what you do for a living looking at it and saying, âI understand how much time it took to do that sequence. But when youâre talking about the overview, I donât think you need it. This may be a darling that needs to be taken out in the back and throttled.â I think thatâs more valuable. Iâll put it this way, Social Network is a byproduct of friends and family screenings only; we did no test screenings, no focus groups, no nothing. Dragon Tattoo, same thing. There are things that, now that Iâve seen the movie with completely uninitiated audience members, if there is such a thing for a movie made from Stieg Larssonâs first international best-seller, thereâs a lot of stuff that I know could have been better, could have been svelter, more lithe, or clearer. Itâs already been illuminated by people who are intimately involved in the process or people who I trust implicitly to be able to look at it and go, âDo you really get that sheâs X, Y or Z? Do you really understand? How do you make Wennerstrom mean more?â You know? Thereâs nothing you can do. I donât have time to reshoot stuff, so this represents the best version of it. Iâm going to try to get through some questions pretty quickly: favorite guilty pleasure movie?Fincher: God, I donât know. Whatâs a movie that, if it comes on cable, you canât turn away from it no matter what? A lot of people say Godfather or Goodfellas. Fincher: Oh, I wouldnât consider that a guilty pleasure. Thatâs not a guilty pleasure, I switched to another question.Fincher: I donât know the guilty pleasure movies. Theyâre all worthy pleasures. Is there a movie that comes on cable that if it comes on youâre fucked because you know you have to sit there and watch it until the end?Fincher: No. I hate to be boring, but itâs true. Star Wars or Star Trek?Fincher: Star Wars. And which is your favorite of the Star Wars films?Fincher: Empire. Thatâs a good answer.Fincher: Well, itâs the only answer. A lot of people say Star Wars or Empire. Itâs interesting to see which one.Fincher: No, look I appreciate Star Wars; itâs an amazing accomplishment, it is an A+. I think Empireâs an A++ because itâs one of those movies where it was, remember, it was my senior year of high school, itâs the summer, itâs literally the end of... Letâs put it this way, when I saw that George Lucas was going to do the AT-ATs on baking soda with stop-motion and he was going to turn a pivotal character over to Frank Oz and he was going to play it as a Muppet, I thought, âThis fucking guy has balls, man.â Itâs unreal the risks that he will take in order to tell us his story. And the fact that it comes off so well, that itâs so deftly done, is just the ultimate, to me, the cobbling together of all of these magical disciplines to make this thing that is so much greater than the sum of its parts. Thatâs spectacular. The cast is spectacular in it, everybody works well, itâs fun, itâs crazy good. Crazy good entertainment, amazing cinema. Status on 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea: Captain Nemo, Cleopatra and House of Cards? Fincher: House of Cards, Iâm casting and Iâm going to Washington and Baltimore this weekend to look at locations. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Iâm waiting for a draft. Cleopatra, I havenât even begun. Iâve just spoken with Angie [Angelina Jolie] and Eric [Roth] and Iâm trying to figure out how to weigh in. So thatâs not even close?Fincher: Itâs just a discussion about: what can it be, what are people expecting, what do we need to do to destroy that?
David Fincher Talks THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, Deleted Scenes, His Favorite STAR WARS Movie, Test Screenings, and a Lot More
David Fincher THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO Interview. Fincher also talks unrated cuts, Star Trek vs. Star Wars, Cleopatra and House of Cards