Great First Trailer for David Fincher's MANK Transports Us Back to 1930s Hollywood
Netflix has released the first trailer for director David Fincher‘s upcoming film Mank, which is his black-and-white biopic that focuses on Citizen Kane scribe Herman J. Mankiewicz. As a fan of Fincher’s work, this is a film that I’ve been very excited about seeing, and judging by this first trailer, it looks like it’s going to be a great movie. Fincher’s signature filmmaking style is all over this thing!
The movie was scripted by the director’s late father, Jack Fincher, and it stars Gary Oldman in the lead role. This is the brief synopsis that was shared:
1930s Hollywood is reevaluated through the eyes of scathing social critic and alcoholic screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz (Gary Oldman) as he races to finish the screenplay of Citizen Kane.
Here are some additional details on Mankiewicz and this story that were previously shared:
Mankiewicz was a reporter and a critic in the 1920s as well as a member of New York City’s famed literary club, the Algonquin Round Table. By the late 1920s, however, he was recruited by Paramount to come to Hollywood and work in the movie business that was transitioning to talkies. He even talked fellow journalists into joining the screenwriting ranks, famously writing to Ben Hecht, "Millions are to be grabbed out here and your only competition is idiots.”
Mankiewicz worked on numerous now-classic films such as Wizard of Oz, Pride of the Yankees and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes but it was Kane that caused controversy that dogged him until his death. Both Mankiewicz and Welles worked on the script but Mankiewicz accused the filmmaker of trying to push him out of the limelight, even saying Welles offered to pay him off in exchange for sole credit.
Mankiewicz’s supporters (which were many, as the prickly Welles alienated as much as he attracted) cheered and chanted “Mank, Mank, Mank” when Kane won the Oscar for best original screenplay, with both receiving the trophy (even as neither of them attended the ceremony).
Fincher shot the film on location at Kemper Campbell Ranch in Victorville, California, where Mankiewicz spent more than two months working on the first draft of the script for Citizen Kane, which was originally titled American. That script is considered by many to be one of the greatest ever written. Mankiewicz, who notorious in Hollywood for his heavy drinking, stayed clean while writing the script due to the ranch’s strict no-alcohol policy.
The cast for the film also includes Tom Burke as Orson Welles, Amanda Seyfried as Marion Davies, Lily Collins as Rita Alexander, Arliss Howard as Louis B. Mayer, Charles Dance as William Randolph Hearst, Tom Pelphrey as Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Tuppence Middleton as Sara Mankiewicz, Joseph Cross as Charles Lederer, Craig Robert Young as Charlie Chaplin, Sebastian Faure as Clark Gable, Michelle Twarowska as Joan Crawford, Scarlet Cummings as Bette Davis, Natalie Denise Sperl as Greta Garbo, Trevor Wooldridge as Darryl F. Zanuck, Ferdinand Kingsley as Irving Thalberg, and Toby Leonard Moore as David O. Selznick.
Fincher also re-teamed with Mindhunter cinematographer Erik Messerschmidt, and Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross are set to score the film. Mank will open in select theaters in November before arriving on Netflix on December 4.