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David Fincher (born May 10, 1962) is an American film director.
Born in Denver, Colorado, Fincher started as an animator at Industrial Light
and Magic in 1980, with his first screen credit being for Return of the Jedi,
and stayed until 1984(?). With his sights set on a directing career, he
along with Steve Golin, Sigurion Sighvatson and Dominic Sena founded the
talent management and advertising and video-production company Propaganda
Films in 1986, which would soon become the biggest player in the field of
advertising and music videos. Directors such as David Kellogg, Michael Bay,
Antoine Fuqua, Neil LaBute, Spike Jonze, Andrew Douglas, Stephane Sednaoui,
Mark Romanek, Malcolm Venville, Michel Gondry, Zack Snyder, Gore Verbinski,
and Alex Proyas among others honed their talents at Propaganda before moving
on to mainstream feature films . The company shut down in 2001 after key
members left.
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The same year, Fincher, Golin, and Kellogg, among others, formed the talent
management and advertising and music production company Anonymous Content.
Fincher directed big-budget music videos for artists such as Madonna (including
"Express Yourself" and "Vogue"), George Michael, Aerosmith, the Rolling
Stones (including "Love Is Strong"), Nine Inch Nails, the Wallflowers and A
Perfect Circle, as well as commercials.
Like a number of other music video directors, he then moved into film. His
debut was Alien³ (1992), which was then the most expensive picture ever made
by a first-time director, but it was a financial and critical disappointment.
Despite this initial setback, Fincher's career rebounded dramatically with
his next film, the serial-killer thriller Se7en (1995). It was followed by
the dark adventure film, The Game (1997), which was only a modest success.
In 1999, Fincher directed Fight Club, which flopped at the box-office but
earned Fincher a cult following (see main article). In 2002 he followed up
with the thriller Panic Room, which introduced some innovative uses of
computer graphics.
Alien³, Se7en, Fight Club and Panic Room all contain grisly close-ups of
massive head wounds. Whether this is a directorial signature or merely a
consequence of the films' violent subject matter, only time will tell.
In 2005 he made a return to directing music videos with the Nine Inch Nails
single "Only" . Fincher also reteamed with Brad Pitt to direct a Heineken ad
that aired during 2005 Super Bowl.
Fincher's next two projects are going to be a film about the Zodiac killer
and an adaptation of the short story "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button".
Major studios Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros. signed Fincher for the job
in July, 2005. This came after a long time of uncertainty regarding
Fincher's future projects, as quite a few film projects attached to him were
eventually dropped (including The Lookout Rendezvous with Rama, Lords of
Dogtown, Seared ,Passengers , and They Fought Alone. |
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