The book-to-screen adaptation pipeline is nothing new to Hollywood or literature. For so long as artists have been making movement footage, beloved books have consistently been become movies. Some novels are completely cinematic and lend themselves to the big-screen adaptation, whereas others require a bit extra heft from their adapting groups. David Fincher, who has embraced this technique of storytelling, has tailored many novels for the massive display, starting from true crime and nonfiction novels to pulpy airport and seashore reads.

Out of David Fincher’s twelve characteristic movies, seven are based mostly on pre-existing literary materials. Fincher’s means to hone in on the essence of those novels and create entertaining and layered diversifications has made their movie diversifications beloved masterpieces, which makes him the right director to tackle an adaptation of those literary works. These ten novels can be ripe for a Fincher adaptation, because of their themes, genres, and approaches to topics that resonate with the director and his viewers.

10

‘Battle Membership 2’ (2015–2016)

Written by Chuck Palahniuk

In 2015, Chuck Palahniuk started releasing Battle Membership 2, a restricted comedian ebook sequence and a sequel to his 1996 novel Battle Membership. Battle Membership 2 finds The Narrator (now Sebastian) residing an earthly and dysfunctional life with Marla till Tyler Durden re-emerges from his unconscious. In embracing the eccentricities that the comedian ebook format gives, Chuck Palahniuk makes an attempt to have interaction the followers of the unique novel (and the movie), who see Tyler Durden because the hero.

For many followers of Battle Membership, a movie sequel 25 years later might be frowned upon. It is comprehensible, because the 1999 movie is a wonderfully self-contained story that continues to impress and interrogate societal traits a few years later. Nevertheless, the thought of Fincher making a sequel that straight addresses the fallacious and dangerous messages followers of Battle Membership have taken from the movie is a really intriguing prospect. In a world the place the movie’s messaging is much more prevalent, albeit misunderstood, it might be the right time for Fincher to return to that movie and underline his level.

Earlier than his sudden demise, Stieg Larsson accomplished three novels in his Millennium Trilogy. All three books have been tailored into movies in Sweden in 2009, with Noomi Rapace as Lisbeth Salander and Michael Nyqvist as Mikael Blomkvist. Nevertheless, solely the primary ebook within the trilogy, The Lady with the Dragon Tattoo, was tailored right into a Hollywood movie by David Fincher with Rooney Mara and Daniel Craig as Salander and Blomkvist, respectively.

Contemplating the success of Fincher’s tackle the primary novel, the standard of Larsson’s subsequent efforts, and Mara and Craig’s excellence of their roles, it’s a disgrace that extra movies within the trilogy have been by no means made. Followers of each Fincher and the novels might be excited to see what Fincher and screenwriter Steven Zaillian can do with the remainder of the trilogy on the heels of The Lady with the Dragon Tattoo‘s darkish groundwork.

8

‘The Black Dahlia: A Crime Graphic Novel’

Written by Alexis Nolent and David Fincher

Just a few issues. Sure, James Ellroy is the creator of the novel The Black Dahlia. No, this isn’t the identical ebook however a graphic novel adaptation. Sure, David Fincher wrote a graphic novel, or at the very least he was given co-writing credit score by the graphic novel’s creator, Alexis Nolent (often known as Matz and the creator of future Fincher movie, The Killer). Sure, there’s already a movie based mostly on James Ellroy’s authentic novel, Brian De Palma‘s The Black Dahlia. Nonetheless, this checklist proposes an adaptation of the graphic novel and never the unique novel.

Apparently, Fincher was initially connected to the variation of The Black Dahlia, and on the time, he wished to make it a tv miniseries. The graphic novel’s abridged model and Fincher’s intimate understanding of the story now current him with the chance to make a satisfying movie adaptation.

7

‘The Grownup’ (2014)

Written by Gillian Flynn

Gillian Flynn‘s brief story The Grownup is a con-woman story a couple of retired intercourse employee (now posing as a fortune-teller and psychic), a rich housewife, and a homicide conspiracy. It retains the viewers’s allegiances consistently shifting, and it is by no means explicitly clear who might be fully trusted. These are all of the makings of an ideal Fincher thriller.

Following the success of their first collaboration, 2014’s Gone Lady, Fincher and Flynn adapting The Grownup for the display can be a welcome endeavor. A few of the home relationships that Gillian Flynn explored in her Gone Lady novel are additionally right here and can show glorious fodder for Fincher’s darkly comedian sensibilities. Whereas a number of of David Fincher’s movies are horror-adjacent, he has by no means made one which included supernatural parts as a lot as an adaptation of The Grownup would require. It is going to be a enjoyable alternative to see Fincher do numerous what he is already confirmed to be glorious at whereas trying some new avenues.

6

‘Painkiller’ (2016)

Written by N.J. Fountain

N.J. Fountain’s Painkiller is a criminal offense thriller during which the viewers is not positive there is a crime. The novel’s protagonist, Monica, suffers from power neuropathic ache and is thus restricted to her dwelling, shedding reminiscences of years of her life. When she finds a suicide notice in her handwriting, she begins to surprise about who may need her lifeless and what’s stopping them from making an attempt once more.

Whereas the novel may be all ears to Fincher’s work on Gone Lady, Painkiller‘s paranoia, confusion, and fixed unease make it an ideal car for the person who directed The Recreation. Similar to with that Michael Douglas-starring movie, Painkiller‘s readers are consistently uncertain as to what to imagine. David Fincher is a grasp of temper and tone, and he’ll strike the proper steadiness to maintain audiences on their toes.

5

‘Ripley Beneath Water’ (1991)

Written by Patricia Highsmith

Patricia Highsmith‘s sequence of Tom Ripley novels are a few of the most well-known literary works of the final half a century. The primary novel within the sequence, The Proficient Mr. Ripley, has acquired a number of movie, tv and stage diversifications. Moreover, three of the 5 novels within the Ripley-focused assortment have been tailored into movies. Nevertheless, her final two books within the sequence, The Boy Who Adopted Ripley and Ripley Beneath Water, have by no means been tailored.

In Ripley Beneath Water, components of Tom Ripley’s prison previous come again to hang-out him, resulting in a cat-and-mouse recreation with a stalker he suspects could know his fact. Whereas a lot of the public is aware of the Tom Ripley story because of The Proficient Mr. Ripley, not many know in regards to the occasions of Ripley Beneath Water. This lack of understanding of such an important novel offers Fincher an opportunity to make this story his personal and make a movie free from the shadow of earlier diversifications.

4

‘Avenger’ (2003)

Written by Frederick Forsyth

David Fincher already ventured into Frederick Forsyth‘s territory along with his Michael Fassbender-starring The Killer, which owes lots to Forsyth’s The Day of the Jackal. Forsyth’s 2003 novel, Avenger, follows a army veteran turned worldwide vigilante. Following tragic occasions in his private life, he now makes use of the abilities he realized as a part of an elite army process drive to seek out criminals and hand them over to the USA justice system. In Avenger, he comes into battle with the CIA as the person he has been employed to seek out is underneath their covert safety.

With The Killer, Fincher exhibited his proficiency with a extremely expert and exact murderer. With an adaptation of Avenger, he combines that with a cat-and-mouse story between the titular Avenger and the CIA. Fincher has but to deal with explicitly political materials, and a enterprise into the distinctive spy thriller style will be the proper and thrilling car for that exploration.

3

‘The Hunter’ (2024)

Written by Tana French

Tana French‘s 2024 novel The Hunter, the second in her Cal Hooper sequence, finds the American ex-detective intent on residing a quiet life within the fictional rural Irish city of Ardnakelty. Nevertheless, when the notoriously manipulative father of his mentee, Trey, returns, plots of corruption, vengeance and homicide start to spring up.

The novel presents a number of intricately plotted crime plots that will match proper into Fincher’s skillset. His meticulousness as a director has at all times enhanced his means to take care of a steadiness between a number of equally vital plots. Fincher’s standpoint of a small city rocked by a mysterious new determine can be an fascinating growth on a few of the community-focused commentary he started in Gone Lady. Moreover, Cal and Trey are a basic “Lone Wolf and Cub” relationship, a preferred trope that Fincher has but to discover. This adaptation permits him to construct on a few of his present work whereas venturing into new territory.

2

‘The Wager: A Story of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Homicide’ (2023)

Written by David Grann

David Grann‘s 2023 nonfiction novel, The Wager: A Story of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Homicide, tells the story of the notorious “Wager Mutiny,” which passed off among the many crew of the HMS Wager after it was shipwrecked in 1741. The novel highlights the horrible situations the crew was in earlier than the shipwreck, the desperation they felt after the wreckage, and the actions that ensued. The novel additionally offers with the concepts of fact, notion and public opinion. Either side of the mutiny present their accounts of occasions as the reality and attempt to use public sympathy to validate their stances. Throughout their court-martial on returning to England, Nice Britain suppresses the occasions of the mutiny so as to keep their perceived superiority and justify their continued colonialism.

It is a dense and thrilling novel and explains why Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio have been connected to make the movie adaption following their success adapting David Grann’s 2017 nonfiction novel into Killers of the Flower Moon. Nevertheless, contemplating the numerous delayed movies Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio have on their docket, it might fall by the aspect. In such a scenario, Fincher can be the right director to look at the darkness of humanity and the way far we’re keen to go when confronted with desperation. His work on The Social Community additionally proves his comfortability within the courtroom setting, making him good for the court-martial part of the novel.

1

‘Freeway 13’ (2024)

Written by Fiona McFarlane

Fiona McFarlane‘s Freeway 13 is a set of brief tales linked by their connection to a lately arrested serial killer. The tales embrace private histories of the killer’s victims earlier than his arrest in 1998, and the podcast and true-crime media centered across the killer sooner or later.

David Fincher has made a reputation for himself as maybe the preeminent filmmaking voice within the serial killer sandbox. Whereas adapting Freeway 13 could appear to be a return to his consolation zone, the train offers him a chance that neither Se7en nor Zodiac ever did. With a movie adaptation of Fiona McFarlane’s tales, Fincher will get to middle the victims of a serial killer versus the hunt for the killer. Moreover, in partaking with the emergence and proliferation of true-crime podcasts and biopics, Fincher will get to analyze the present pop-culture panorama that his movies performed a big function in creating.

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