It would appear that today is official the day for the trailers of major upcoming awards contenders. Earlier today we had a look at director Paul Greengrass and star Tom Hanks’ western drama News of the World, and now comes maestro filmmaker David Fincher’s long-awaited Mank about the background drama of the making of Citizen Kane.
And we really do mean “long-awaited”. Fincher has been trying to get this film made since the late 1990s but the project kept not coming together for various reasons until eventually given the greenlight by Netflix. And I’m not sure why other studios kept passing on Mank as it’s a damn compelling story as we previously reported.
You can read more details of the whole messy affair in the linked article above, but the short version is that in the 1930s, screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz penned the screenplay that would eventually become Citizen Kane, arguably the greatest movie ever made, basing its tycoon lead character off several real-life industrialists including frequent social circle foe William Randolph Hearst, much to the ire of the latter. On top of that controversy came the issue that Citizen Kane director Orson Welles claimed that he did most of the writing on the Oscar-winning screenplay – the two men argued about this for decades with no clear answer.
Mank will be touching on both those subjects as well as the overall state of 1930s Hollywood via the star-studded cast that Fincher has assembled for the job. Most notably leading the ensemble is Gary Oldman as Herman J. Mankiewicz aka Mank himself, and it looks like he will be on top form for this one, which Fincher shot completely in black and white. Check out the appropriate cool retro trailer below.
Along with Oldman, Mank also features Tom Burke as Orson Welles, Amanda Seyfried as actress/producer Marion Davies, Lily Collins as actress Rita Alexander, Arliss Howard as MGM co-founder Louis B. Mayer, Sam Troughton as actor John Houseman, Ferdinand Kingsley as producer Irving Thalberg, Tom Pelphrey as Mankiewicz’s director brother Joseph, Tuppence Middleton as Mankiewicz’s wife Sara, and Charles Dance as William Randolph Hearst, among others.
Fincher is also keeping Mank in the family here as the screenplay was actually written by his father Jack. Don’t worry, nobody’s contesting that claim.
Mank is scheduled to debut on Netflix on 4 December 2020.
Last Updated: October 9, 2020
