Mindhunter Is Done For Now At Netflix According To EP David Fincher

Netflix’s Mindhunter is done for now, according to executive producer David Fincher. Fans of Mindhunter have been waiting and hoping that season 3 of the show was going to be saved after it was put on indefinite hiatus back in January, with the cast being released from their contracts. In a new interview, David Fincher indicates that the effort and cost of making the show aren’t worth the viewership returns: “Listen, for the viewership that it had, it was a very expensive show…on some level, you have to be realistic — dollars have to equal eyeballs.”

While sitting down to speak with Vulture about his new film Mank, Fincher described the grueling process of making the show:

“Mindhunter was a lot for me… It’s a 90-hour workweek. It absorbs everything in your life. When I got done, I was pretty exhausted, and I said, ‘I don’t know if I have it in me right now to break season three.’”

The cast and crew of Mindhunter used to have relocated to Pittsburgh to shoot the series, which apparently cost a lot to achieve its dark and lavish (Fincher-signature) cinematic look. The lead characters (a team of FBI investigators) have to travel to different prisons for interviews with convicted killers – meaning that Mindhunter had to shoot at many different locations, some requiring extensive amounts of extras and the like. The show amassed a solid cult-following in its two seasons but definitely didn’t have the level of buzz to match the level of money and effort that David Fincher describes.

While it sounds like David Fincher is done with Mindhunter, Netflix doesn’t necessarily feel the same. The streaming service still hasn’t officially axed the show, and the report notes that Netflix is leaving “the door a tiny crack open” for Mindhunter to make an eventual return. As one spokesman noted, “Maybe in five years.”

If you haven’t watched it yet, Mindhunter tells the true-crime story of FBI agents Holden Ford (Jonathan Groff) and Bill Tench (Holt McCallany), who partner with FBI psychologist Wendy Carr (Anna Torv) for a revolutionary study. They interview captured serial killers to learn more about their psyches and histories, to help the FBI better solve serial killer cases. The highlight of the show was frightening conversations between the agents and some of America’s most notorious serial killers, like Ed Kemper (Cameron Britton), David Berkowitz (Oliver Cooper), and Charles Manson (Damon Herriman). The process of getting close to such evil had profound moral/psychological effect on the respective agents. Season 2 saw Holden trying to apply his new theories to Atlanta’s infamous missing children case.

Mindhunter is still available to stream on Netflix.