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Movies & TV

21st Feb 2023

Mindhunter producer confirms the future of the show

Stephen Porzio

showrunner

The Netflix true crime drama garnered a legion of devoted fans.

Mindhunter’s director, executive producer and showrunner David Fincher has delivered a blow for fans of the acclaimed true crime drama – the series is no more.

Based on the true crime book of the same name, the show first premiered on Netflix in 2017 and followed two detectives (Holt McCallany and Jonathan Groff) in the early days of criminal profiling as they look into the psychology of killers.

A second season was released on the streamer in 2019, with the series garnering a legion of devoted fans throughout its run. However, despite the show’s glowing reception from critics and fans alike, plans for a third season were put on indefinite hold in 2020 by Netflix, with the streamer citing Fincher’s other projects as the reason.

Mindhunter season three

In the years since there has been no update from Netflix regarding the show, though star McCallany previously said he was optimistic the show would return while series director Asif Kapadia called on fans to make enough noise to secure another batch of episodes.

Yet, in an interview with French outlet JDD ahead of receiving an honorary award at the country’s version of the Oscars, Fincher put a damper on such hopes.

Asked if there will be more Mindhunter, the producer responded:

“I’m very proud of the first two seasons. But it is a particularly expensive show and, in the eyes of Netflix, we did not attract a large enough audience to justify such an investment.

“I don’t blame them. They took risks to launch the series, gave me the means to do as I dreamed with Mank [his black and white movie set in Hollywood in the 1930s] and they allowed me to venture on new paths with The Killer [his upcoming crime thriller movie starring Michael Fassbender as a hitman].”

Fincher’s comments will be particularly devastating for fans, given how great the plans for season three of Mindhunter sounded.

Last year, another one of the show’s directors, Andrew Dominik, said that main characters Holden Ford and Bill Tench were going to rub shoulders with real Hollywood stars as the series was apparently set to explore the making of classic serial killer films like Manhunter and The Silence of the Lambs.

“What they were going to do with Season 3 was they were going to go [to] Hollywood,” said Dominik.

“So one of them was going to be hooking up with Jonathan Demme [the director of The Silence of the Lambs] and the other one was going to be hooking up with Michael Mann [Manhunter].

“It was all going to be about profiling making it into the sort of zeitgeist, the public consciousness.  That was the season everyone was really waiting for them to do, when they sort of get out of the basement and start.”

At least those first two seasons are still on Netflix for now.

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