The Best Netflix Show Of All Time Is Dead Forever
David Fincher says Netflix did not renew Mindhunter for a third season for financial reasons.
True crime fans can finally close the case on why Netflix’s hit series Mindhunter won’t be coming back for a third season. Directed by the famed filmmaker David Fincher (Fight Club, Se7en), fans long believed that it was the helmer’s busy schedule that stopped the series dead in its tracks. However, during a recent interview with French magazine Le Journal du Dimanche, Fincher addressed the real reason the beloved crime drama wasn’t picked back up – a decision he says was made by Netflix due to budget concerns.
During his interview, Fincher said that while the series developed a loyal following, Netflix ultimately decided to scrap Mindhunter because it was “a very expensive show” to make and that at the end of the day, there wasn’t enough viewership “to justify such an investment.” Grateful for his time working on the series, the Academy Award-nominated director said that he doesn’t “blame [Netflix]” for their decision to axe the project, adding that the platform “took risks to get the show off the ground.” He also said that his eye behind the production would allow Netflix to entrust him with the duty of backing the star-studded black-and-white biographical drama, Mank, something he’s deeply grateful for.
Through his interview, it would also appear that David Fincher’s vision possibly clashed with Netflix’s when it came to the future of Mindhunter. The Gone Girl director alluded to not seeing eye-to-eye with the distributor, saying “the day our desires are not the same, we have to be honest about parting ways.” This leads us to believe that beyond the cash flow problems, there were also some disagreements with where the series was headed.
A must-watch for any true crime lover, Netflix’s Mindhunter debuted on the streamer back in 2017 with Frozen star Jonathan Groff and Holt McCallany playing a team of detectives molding the behavioral unit for the FBI. Throughout the show’s two seasons, audiences tag along with the agents as they come face-to-face with a multitude of infamous killers including David Berkowitz aka Son of Sam (Oliver Cooper), Charles Manson (Damon Herriman), Elmer Wayne Henley Jr. (Robert Aramayo), Edmund Kemper (Cameron Britton), Jerry Brudos (Happy Anderson), and Richard Speck (Jack Erdie). Over its run, the series was also setting up the rise of Dennis Rader aka BTK, who would have surely been the center of Season 3.
Pulling its subject matter from the experiences of the men who lived them firsthand, Netflix and David Fincher based Mindhunter on the book Mindhunter: Inside the FBI’s Elite Serial Crime Unit penned by John E. Douglas and Mark Olshaker. Like the series, the book recounts the team’s journey to better understand the minds of serial killers which would in turn help them better catch future perpetrators. The series also starred Anna Torv, Cotter Smith, Joe Tuttle, and Stacey Roca.
While it’s an absolute shame that Netflix canned Mindhunter before fans were able to see where David Fincher, the leading cast, and the plot were taking us next, it’s good to finally have a reason why the series came to a screeching halt. With other crime-based titles like Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story and The Watcher gaining so much popularity for the streamer, it’s clear that the true crime fandom is here to stay, which should be more of a reason to bring the dramatized series back. Alas, it doesn’t look like a Season 3 is in the cards for Mindhunter, but you can stream the first two seasons now on Netflix.
