Fincher Helming Zodiac & Benjamin Button
Source: Variety July 5, 2005
Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros. Pictures have signed David Fincher to direct Zodiac, starring Mark Ruffalo, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, with Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett, back-to-back.
Variety says Fincher (Panic Room) is in pre-production on Zodiac, which also stars Robert Downey Jr., Jake Gyllenhaal and Anthony Edwards. Production is slated to start in September, with Jamie Vanderbilt adapting from Robert Graysmith's "Zodiac" and 2002 sequel "Zodiac Unmasked: The Identity of America's Most Elusive Serial Killer Revealed." Shooting will take place in San Francisco - where the Zodiac Killer operated starting in the late 1960s - and in Los Angeles.
Warner is taking the lead on producing Zodiac. Paramount will handle domestic distribution while Warner will handle international.
Par and Warner are aiming for Fincher to start lensing "Benjamin Button" in October 2006. Pitt and Blanchett currently are starring in Paramount's Babel. "Button" will mark the third time Pitt has teamed with Fincher following Se7en and Fight Club.
"Benjamin Button" is produced by Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall with a script by Eric Roth (Forrest Gump). The film centers on a man who, at age 50, begins aging backward and the complications that ensue when he falls in love with a woman of 30. The story's been set in New Orleans.
Paramount is taking the lead on "Button" and handling domestic distribution; Warner will market the film in foreign territories.
Variety