The COVID-19 pandemic has completely changed nearly every facet of the entertainment industry, especially when it comes to feature films. With movie theaters still nowhere near normal operating capacity, many have had to turn to streaming services for blockbusters over the past few months — and it looks like Mank will soon be among them. On Wednesday, Netflix released the first official trailer for Mank, the latest feature film to be directed by David Fincher. The project will see Gary Oldman playing the titular character, Herman J. Mankiewicz, as he navigates the tumultuous journey of writing Citizen Kane, and clashing with Orson Welles (Tom Burke) in the process.
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Mank is somewhat of a personal project for Fincher, as the script was written by his father, Jack Fincher, before his death in 2003. The project was initially poised to be Fincher’s follow-up to 1997’s The Game, but fell apart at the time due to the director’s desire to film in black and white.
“We tried. It was too expensive,” Fincher said in a 2009 interview. “Because if you’re going to make a Hollywood insider movie—it’s nothing to do with Hollywood really, it’s Hollywood in the late thirties, early forties—you’ve got to make it really cheaply. We had a chance to make the movie for, like, $13 million, back in 1998 and, um, I wanted to make it in black and white. And that f-cked up all those home video and video sellthrough and cable deals. I haven’t read it in a while. I probably should.”
Mank will also star Amanda Seyfried (Mamma Mia!) as Marion Davies, Charles Dance (Game of Thrones) as William Randolph Hearst, Lily Collins (Emily in Paris) as Rita Alexander, Arliss Howard (True Blood) as Louis B. Mayer, Tom Pelphrey (Iron Fist) as Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Sam Troughton (Chernobyl) as John Houseman, Ferdinand Kingsley (Victoria) as Irving Thalberg, Tuppence Middleton (Sense8) as Sara Mankiewicz, Joseph Cross (As the World Turns) as Charles Lederer, Jamie McShane (Bloodline) as Shelly Metcalf, Toby Leonard Moore (Daredevil) as David O. Selznick, and Monika Grossman as Fraulein Freda. The film’s music is being done by Nine Inch Nails‘ Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, who recently scored an Emmy for their work scoring HBO’s Watchmen.
What do you think of the first trailer for Mank? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!
Mank will be released in select theaters in November, before debuting on Netflix on December 4th.
