I like making lists.

2. David Fincher’s Torso, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Rendezvous with Rama, and The Girl Who Played with Fire



Time to cheat a little. Rather than listing several of David Fincher’s unmade films throughout the top ten, I decided to condense them all down to one entry. Primarily so I could explore other unmade films, secondarily to attempt to conceal my love for Fincher by not creating a list that was 30-40% comprised of his projects. I figured I would tackle these one at a time, yeah? (These four are in no particular order, fyi.)

Torso. A film, based on a graphic novel, which would have likely starred Matt Damon as real life investigator Elliot Ness; a new serial killer is on the loose who only leaves his victims’ torsos, meaning identification is next to impossible without extensive DNA testing. It’s an interesting concept, made much more interesting with Fincher’s involvement. I suspect the film fell by the way side when Fincher started comparing it to other serial killer films he had already made. This was targeted for release in 2008/9, and by then he had already made both Se7en and Zodiac.

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. As a big Jules Verne fan, I would have loved to have seen Fincher take this project on. I suspect Disney decided not to go for it for a few reasons – it had a gargantuan budget pushing $150-200 million, and David Fincher isn’t typically a go-to-guy for helming big budget blockbusters at all, much less for Disney. That being said, as somebody who has read the book, the character of Captain Nemo has never really been done justice. He’s a complicated individual, and he says and does a lot of very profound things in addition to taking part in some pretty horrific things. Fincher might have done a really good job here.

Rendezvous with Rama. To be fair, I suppose this is another project that might end up being made some day although it seems pretty dead at this point. To be honest, I have not read the novel and know little about the project beyond what I’ve read making this list and just in general about the story over the past few years when it became a really popular topic to discuss. I’ve read a lot of other Arthur C. Clarke’s works, just not the Rama series. My understanding is that there were hints of the premise of the book within Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar, but maybe that is an exaggerated thought. Considering how little I know about the project, it’s really just the idea of Fincher making a science fiction film in space that really intrigues me. Or remake Aliens 3, I don’t care. Just do something in space.

The Girl Who Played with Fire. I’ve intentionally stayed away from spoilers regarding this novel so I honestly don’t know anything about it. That being said, I loved the first film and I’ve hoped he would make a sequel. The original was not largely successful and with Fincher’s future plans in mind I suspect he isn’t coming back to this any time soon (Rooney Mara said she thinks it’s a dead project literally two or three days ago as well). Bummer.

God I want him to make this so bad. It sounds incredible.

Agreed. I'm sure with his age now that won't change either.

Actually I looked into that out of curiosity, the results were not positive. It seems like Coppola is the only director ever attached to the project.

Great list.

Yeah, Fincher needs to make sci-fi. Anything.

I once heard Ridley's Scott's name attached to The Forever War...

I agree. From what I've heard it sounds really intriguing.

Yeah I've heard that too. That would be awesome.

I will, I'm hoping to get the first one started today.

Someone ate your lunch again didn't they? They deserve to burn...

Didn't Jack come out in 1996?  That would make it 19 years.

lol no.

I'm shooting for today guys.

Ranking the Villains of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (Film Only)

The first of what will likely be several lists about the MCU in anticipation of the releases of Avengers: Age of Ultron and Ant-Man this summer. You all know I'm a huge fan of this universe, so I figure I may as well just dive right in and talk endlessly about it for the next few months.

This first list may seem a little dry, but I promise that I have ideas in mind that will be much more elaborate than just ranking something we've already seen; I'll discuss my thoughts on what's coming up next, where I think the franchise might be headed, missed opportunities, ideas I hope Marvel puts into development, etc. Excelsior!

10. Emil Blonsky/The Abomination, The Incredible Hulk (Tim Roth)



He made the list, honestly, because the MCU has sort of suffered from a lack of interesting villains. He's not bad necessarily, Blonsky is just kind of a non-character. He's a hotshot military guy when we meet him, and as soon as Ross introduces him to the idea of being injected with the Super Soldier serum Blonsky is fucking all over it. There's no internal strife, just sign him the hell up. He makes for a good fight against the Hulk and I enjoyed that because it delivered something that Ang Lee's Hulk really didn't do much of - intense action. That's an argument for a different list though. The Abomination was good as a one-hit character to duel with the Green Goliath though.

9. Obadiah Stane/Iron Monger, Iron Man (Jeff Bridges)



Stane betrays Tony Stark twice - once by selling him out to the Ten Rings and again by literally taking the arc reactor out of Tony's heart (hole?). Cold as ice. That being said, in the grand scheme of things he's sort of small potatoes compared to the rest of the villains on display in the universe. But he's made more interesting than them through Jeff Bridges' performance, a bald head and a cool beard. If the part had been played by someone with less screen presence than Bridges, he might not have made the list at all.