Rooney Mara is “this close” to heading to Utopia with David Fincher

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

Last week it was rumoured that Rooney Mara was in talks to join the cast of David Fincher's upcoming adaptation of the U.K. series Utopia for HBO, and now The Wrap has reported that the actress is in fact in "advanced negotiations" to star in the series. Her initial hesitation on moving forward had much to do with her reluctance to sign on to a project which required a multi-year commitment, but her close relationship with David Fincher seems to have paid off as the director has managed to convince her to climb aboard.

We didn't have any information as to which character Rooney Mara was in talks to play last week, but today's news also brings fresh information; Rooney Mara is in negotiations to play Jessica Hyde, who was played by Fiona O'Shaughnessy in the original U.K. series. As I have little knowledge of the U.K. series or its characters, I'll have to leave it up to you folks as to whether she's a good fit. Rooney Mara and David Fincher's last collaboration, THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, was lovely so the chance to revisit that partnership with some long-form storytelling sounds very appealing.

A synopsis for the U.K. series:

The story follows a small group of people who find themselves in possession of the manuscript sequel of a cult graphic novel called The Utopia Experiments, which is rumoured to have predicted the worst disasters of the last century. This leads them to be targeted by an organization known as The Network, which they must avoid to survive. Using the manuscript, they must uncover the meaning hidden in its pages before the disasters depicted become reality

Utopia, which was given a straight-to-series order by HBO, is set to begin production later this year with David Fincher directing every episode and GONE GIRL scribe Gillian Flynn handling the scripts. I mentioned that I had little knowledge of the original series, but I'm definitely aware of its existence as it's one of those shows which is constantly recommended to me. I just don't listen.