David Fincher Speaks on Netflix’s Cancellation of ‘Mindhunter,’ Calls Show “A Huge Risk”

David Fincher recently opened up about the cancellation of his popular Netflix series Mindhunter, which was confirmed to be axed in early 2023.

As per FincherAnalyst’s French-to-English translation, the director told Première that their troubles with character development and the show’s hefty price tag were major factors in the decision to cancel Mindhunter. “Maybe House of Cards wasn’t a huge risk, but Mindhunter was. A procedural on behavioral sciences that would be neither X-Files, nor CSI, nor Criminal Minds, but would function as the portrait of a guy who loses his virginity in the world of psychosexual sadists? We couldn’t complete the trajectory, but it was a gamble,” Fincher explained. “An expensive series, too. Very expensive. We went as far as we could until someone finally said to us, ‘It makes no sense to produce this series like this, unless you can reduce the budget, or make it more pop, so that more people will watch it.’”

He further stated that they had no intention in altering their approach to the show, so Netflix “respectfully” let them know that Mindhunter could no longer continue. “I always take a slight step aside from what is expected of me. Otherwise, I’m not interested,” Fincher shared. “At a test screening of Seven, in the second of silence just before the lights came back on, while everyone was gasping for air, I caught the producer cursing at me, ‘This guy has taken a great thriller and made it into a foreign film!’”

There were reports in April 2021 about discussions of Mindhunter’s third season, but Fincher confirmed in February 2023 that the show was ending with its second season, which premiered in August 2019. “I’m very proud of the first two seasons. But it’s a very expensive show and, in the eyes of Netflix, we didn’t attract enough of an audience to justify such an investment [for Season 3],” he said.