David Fincher and Gillian Flynn’s HBO series Utopia is officially dead

Well, there goes one of David Fincher's projects at HBO. The filmmaker behind such films that never happened such as 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA, STEVE JOBS, and THE GOON, has yet another project that has slipped through his fingers. Deadline reports that Fincher's second collaboration with GONE GIRL writer Gillian Flynn, Utopia, has failed to settle on a budget with premium network HBO which has resulted in the entire cast being released.

The stars of Utopia, who were never formally announced, included Rooney Mara, Colm Feore, Jason Ritter, Eric McCormack, Dallas Roberts, Brandon Scott and Agyness Deyn. Sources said the cast had been rehearsing for a month with Fincher and Flynn. Fincher supposedly already told the cast a week ago the project was dead with the formal announcement coming this weekend. Fincher's other series at HBO, Videosynchrazy, is currently on hold as additional script work is done. It is unknown at this point if HBO and Fincher's relationship is poisoned or if this is just the latest in a line of Fincher projects that have never come to fruition.

One thing to note in this scenario is that HBO retains rights to Utopia. When Fincher's House of Cards did not sell to HBO, Showtime, or other cable networks, the filmmaker and production company Media Rights Capital were able to shop it to Netflix. In this situation, HBO can continue to develop Utopia with a different cast and creative team. It just sucks how far along Fincher and Flynn got before everything fell apart. Hopefully there is a silver lining somewhere in this story, I just don't know what it is.