Academy Award nominee and Emmy Award winning director David Fincher is bringing his latest Netflix movie project, The Killer, to the Chicago area with plans to film for several days at the suburban St. Charles’ historic Hotel Baker along the Fox River.
The film will star Academy Award winner Michael Fassbender, known for playing the character Magneto in the X-Men movies. Academy Award winning actress Tilda Swinton also is part of the cast.
The gritty, neo-noir thriller follows the story of a man solitary and cold, methodical and unencumbered by scruples or regrets, the killer waits in the shadows, watching for his next target. And yet the longer he waits, the more he thinks he’s losing his mind, if not his cool. A brutal, bloody and stylish story of a professional assassin lost in a world without a moral compass, this is a case study of a man alone, armed to the teeth and slowly losing his mind. Upon retiring to Mexico, he’s pulled back into a geopolitical political crisis between Cuba, Venezuela, and the United States.
Fincher has been developing an adaptation of Alexis Nolent‘s French graphic novel The Killer for over 15 years, and now the project has gained renewed momentum after Fincher moved it from Paramount to Netflix, where he signed a four-year deal back in November 2020. This is the second feature film from this deal between Fincher and Netflix with their first film being Mank (2020).
David Fincher was considering numerous projects for his follow-up to Mank. However, it wasn’t until he met with Michael Fassbender as they had several meetings together in discussing this project and seeing how committed Fassbender was in doing it, that Fincher decided to make The Killer his follow-up project.
Fincher is known for films such as Mank, Fight Club, The Social Network, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and Se7en, as well as award winning TV projects including Love, Death & Robots and House of Cards. He also executive produced and directed several episodes of Mindhunter.
Fincher is teaming up again with writer Andrew Kevin Walker for a second time after their 1995 hit film Se7en. Andrew Kevin Walker also did uncredited writing for Fincher’s The Game (1997) and Fight Club (1999). In addition to Se7en, Andrew Kevin Walker’s writing credits also include 8MM which starred Nicolas Cage, Tim Burton’s Sleepy Hollow, and the 2010 version of The Wolfman.
Filming began in Paris, France in November 2021 and filming in St. Charles is expected to take place over about a 10-day period starting in early March and the majority of the filming will occur at night. It should wrap up soon after the St. Patrick’s Parade on March 12.
The Kane County Chronicle reported that the production team will use the former St. Charles police station along the Fox River along with use of the west side parking deck at First and Illinois streets during the upcoming filming schedule.
The former police station will serve as the hub for the production and the production crew will use the fifth floor of the parking deck.
It is not certain if they will use other Chicago area locations but in addition to Paris and St. Charles, they will also film in New Orleans and the Dominican Republic as backdrops for the movie.
Nominate Someone You know For 4th Annual The Reel Black List OR Reel Women
