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Zodiac (film)
Encyclopedia
Zodiac is a 2007 American mystery
-thriller film directed by David Fincher
and based on Robert Graysmith
's non-fiction book of the same name
. The Paramount Pictures
and Warner Bros.
joint production stars Jake Gyllenhaal
, Mark Ruffalo
, and Robert Downey, Jr.
Zodiac tells the story of the hunt for a notorious serial killer
known as "Zodiac
" who killed in and around the San Francisco Bay Area
during the late 1960s and early 1970s, leaving several victims in his wake and taunting police with letters and cipher
s mailed to newspapers. The case remains one of San Francisco's most infamous unsolved crimes.
Fincher, screenwriter
James Vanderbilt, and producer Brad Fischer spent 18 months conducting their own investigation and research into the Zodiac murders. During filming, Fincher employed the digital Thomson Viper Filmstream camera to shoot the film. Contrary to popular belief, Zodiac was not shot entirely digitally; traditional high-speed film cameras were used for slow-motion murder sequences.
Reviews for the film were highly positive. However, it did not perform strongly at the North American box office
, grossing only USD
$33 million. It performed better in other parts of the world, earning $51 million. This brought its box office total to $84 million, with a budget of $65 million spent on its production.
) at a lovers' lane in Vallejo, California
. Mageau survives while Ferrin dies from her injuries.
One month later, a letter written by the Zodiac arrives at the San Francisco Chronicle
. Paul Avery
(Robert Downey, Jr.) is a Chronicle crime reporter. Robert Graysmith
(Jake Gyllenhaal
) is a political cartoonist there. The newspaper receives encrypted letters that the killer sends, taunting the police. Because of Graysmith's status as a cartoonist, he is not taken seriously by Avery and the editors and is excluded from the initial details about the killings despite his interest in the case. In particular, he is drawn to the encrypted code that is included with the letters and is given access to one. When he is able to crack one of the codes and makes several correct guesses about the killer's actions, Avery begins sharing information with him.
The Zodiac killer attacks again, stabbing Bryan Hartnell (Patrick Scott Lewis
) and Cecelia Shepard (Pell James
) at Lake Berryessa
in Napa County. Shepard dies as a result of the attack, while Hartnell survives. Soon afterward, San Francisco taxicab driver Paul Stine is shot and killed in the city's Presidio Heights district. San Francisco police detectives Dave Toschi
(Mark Ruffalo
) and his partner Bill Armstrong (Anthony Edwards
) are assigned to the case, liaising with other detectives such as Jack Mulanax (Elias Koteas
) in Vallejo and Ken Narlow (Donal Logue
) in Napa. The killer, or someone posing as him, continues to toy with authorities by speaking on the phone with celebrity lawyer Melvin Belli
(Brian Cox) when he makes an appearance on a television talk show. Avery and Graysmith form an alliance, delving deeper into the case.
In 1971, Toschi, Armstrong and Mulanax question Arthur Leigh Allen
(John Carroll Lynch
), a potential suspect in the case. However, a handwriting expert
(Philip Baker Hall
) insists that Allen did not write the Zodiac letters. Avery receives a new letter threatening his life. He becomes increasingly paranoid and turns to drugs and alcohol. At one point, he shares information with a rival police force which angers Toschi and Armstrong.
By 1975, Avery leaves the Chronicle. Armstrong quits the homicide division, and Toschi is demoted for supposedly forging a Zodiac letter. Graysmith, meanwhile, continues his own in-depth investigation, interviewing witnesses and police detectives involved in the case. Obsessing over the unsolved case, he begins receiving anonymous phone calls with heavy breathing (on the night of Ferrin's death, Graysmith discovered that someone prank-called the victim's family and did the same thing). Because of his submersion in the case, Graysmith loses his job and his wife Melanie (Chloë Sevigny
) leaves him, taking their children with her.
Graysmith persistently contacts Toschi about the Zodiac murders and eventually impresses the veteran detective with his knowledge of the case. While Toschi cannot directly give Graysmith access to the information he discovered over the years, he provides contacts of other police departments in counties where the other murders occurred. The cartoonist acquires more information that points to Allen as the Zodiac, and although circumstantial evidence
seems to indicate his guilt, the hard evidence, such as fingerprints and handwriting samples, exonerate him.
In December 1983, a full 14 years after the original slayings, Graysmith tracks down Allen to a Vallejo hardware store, where he is employed as a salesclerk. After Allen asks if he can help Graysmith with anything, they stare at each other for a moment with blank expressions before Graysmith simply replies with a 'No,' and leaves the hardware store.
Eight years later, in 1991, Mageau (Jimmi Simpson
) meets with authorities and identifies Allen from a police mugshot
.
Final title cards, however, inform the audience that Allen died in 1992 before he could be further questioned by police, and that DNA tests performed in 2002 did not match samples gathered from the Zodiac letters.
had read Robert Graysmith
's book Zodiac in 1986 while in high school. Years later, he became a screenwriter
, met Graysmith and became fascinated by the folklore surrounding the Zodiac killer and attempted to translate that into his script. Vanderbilt had endured bad experiences with the endings of his scripts being changed and wanted more control over his material. He pitched his adaptation of Zodiac to Mike Medavoy
and Bradley J. Fischer from Phoenix Pictures, by agreeing to write a spec script
if he could have more creative control over it.
Graysmith first met Fischer and Vanderbilt at the premiere of Paul Schrader
's film, Auto Focus
, which was based on Graysmith's 1991 book about the life and death of actor Bob Crane
. A deal was made and they optioned the rights to Zodiac and Zodiac Unmasked when they became available after languishing at Disney
for nearly a decade.
David Fincher
was their first choice to direct based on his work on Se7en
. Originally, he was going to direct an adaptation of James Ellroy
’s novel, The Black Dahlia
(later filmed by Brian De Palma
), and envisioned a five-hour, $80 million mini-series with movie stars. When the studio backing it did not agree, the director left the project and moved on to Zodiac. He was given Vanderbilt’s 158-page screenplay in late 2003.
Fincher was drawn to this story because he spent much of his childhood in San Anselmo in Marin County during the initial Zodiac murders. "I remember coming home and saying the highway patrol had been following our school buses for a couple weeks now. And my dad, who worked from home, and who was very dry, not one to soft-pedal things, turned slowly in his chair and said: ‘Oh yeah. There’s a serial killer who has killed four or five people, who calls himself Zodiac, who’s threatened to take a high-powered rifle and shoot out the tires of a school bus, and then shoot the children as they come off the bus.’". For Fincher as a young boy, the killer "was the ultimate boogeyman". The director was also drawn to the unresolved ending of Vanderbilt's screenplay because it felt true to real life where cases are not always solved.
Fincher realized that his job was to dispel the mythic stature the case had taken on over the years by clearly defining what was fact and what was fiction. He told Vanderbilt that he wanted the screenplay re-written but with additional research done from the original police reports. Fincher found that there was a lot of speculation and hearsay
and wanted to interview people directly involved in the case in person to see if he believed what they were telling him. Fincher did this because he felt a burden of responsibility in making a film that convicted someone posthumously.
The director, Fischer and Vanderbilt spent months interviewing witnesses, family members of suspects, retired and current investigators, the only two surviving victims, and the mayors of San Francisco and Vallejo. Fincher said, “Even when we did our own interviews, we would talk to two people. One would confirm some aspects of it and another would deny it. Plus, so much time had passed, memories are affected and the different telling of the stories would change perception. So when there was any doubt we always went with the police reports”. During the course of their research, Fincher and Fischer hired Gerald McMenamin, an internationally known forensic linguistics
expert and professor of linguistics at California State University Fresno, to analyze the Zodiac’s letters. Unlike document examiners in the 1970s, he focused on the language of the Zodiac and how he formed his sentences in terms of word structure and spelling.
Fincher and Fischer approached Sony Pictures Entertainment
to finance the film but talks with them fell through because the studio wanted the running time fixed at two hours and fifteen minutes. They then approached other studios, and Warner Bros.
and Paramount Pictures
agreed to share the production costs and were willing to be more flexible about the running time. The film was a tough sell to the studios and the executives were concerned about the heavy amount of dialogue and the lack of action scenes, as well as the inconclusive nature of the story arc.
When Dave Toschi met Fincher, Fischer and Vanderbilt, the director told him that he was not going to make another Dirty Harry
(which had been loosely based on the Zodiac case). Toschi was impressed with their knowledge of the case and afterwards, he realized that he had learned a lot from them. In addition, the Zodiac’s two surviving victims, Mike Mageau and Bryan Hartnell were consultants on the film.
Alan J. Pakula
’s film All the President's Men
was the template for Zodiac as Fincher felt that it was also “the story of a reporter determined to get the story at any cost and one who was new to being an investigative reporter. It was all about his obsession to know the truth”. And like in that film, he did not want to spend time telling the back story of any of the characters, focusing, instead, on what they did in regards to the case.”
Vanderbilt was drawn to the notion that Graysmith went from a cartoonist to one of the most significant investigators of the case. He pitched the story as: “What if Garry Trudeau
woke up one morning and tried to solve the Son of Sam”? As he worked on the script, he became friends with Graysmith and consulted him often. The filmmakers were able to get the cooperation of the Vallejo Police Department (one of the key investigators at the time) because they hoped that the movie would inspire someone to come forward with a crucial bit of information that might help solve this decades-old cold case.
to play Robert Graysmith
. According to the director, “I really liked him in Donnie Darko
and I thought, ‘He’s an interesting double-sided coin. He can do that naive thing but he can also do possessed.’” To prepare for his role, Gyllenhaal met Graysmith and videotaped him in order to study his mannerisms and behavior.
Initially, Mark Ruffalo
was not interested in the project but Fincher wanted him to play David Toschi. He met with the actor and told him that he was rewriting the screenplay. “I loved what he was saying and loved where he was going with it”, the actor remembers. For research, he read every report on the case and read all the books on the subject. Ruffalo met Toschi and found out that he had “perfect recall of the details and what happened when, where, who was there, what he was wearing. He always knew what he was wearing. I think it is seared into who he is and it was a big deal for him.”
When casting the role of Inspector William Armstrong, Fincher said he thought of Anthony Edwards
because "I knew I needed the most decent person I could find, because he would be the balance of the movie. In a weird way, this movie wouldn’t exist without Bill Armstrong. Everything we know about the Zodiac case, we know because of his notes. So in casting the part, I wanted to get someone who is totally reliable."
Originally, Gary Oldman
was to play Melvin Belli
but "he went to a lot of trouble, they had appliances, but just physically it wasn't going to work, he just didn't have the girth", Graysmith remembers. Brian Cox was cast instead.
The finished film has an unusually large cast of characters. In a May 15, 2007, film review, Variety noted, "Performances and casting are impeccable down to the smallest role."
, Hewlett Packard, Heineken
and Lexus
which allowed him to get used to and experiment with the equipment. Working with digital cameras allowed him to watch what he had just shot in full resolution, experience less equipment failure than with film, and thereby eliminated things like film negative damage, and reduce costs in post-production. He was able to use inexpensive desktop software like Final Cut Pro
to edit Zodiac. Fincher remarked in an interview, "Dailies
almost always end up being disappointing, like the veil is pierced and you look at it for the first time and think, 'Oh my god, this is what I really have to work with.' But when you can see what you have as it's gathered, it can be a much less neurotic process."
Zodiac was the first production to employ the Filmstream camera in its native Filmstream mode, which records an uncompressed video stream, allowing for exceptional quality.
Contrary to popular belief, Zodiac was not shot entirely digitally; traditional high-speed film cameras were used for slow-motion murder sequences. Michael Mann's
Miami Vice
, as well as his previous effort, Collateral
(a co-production of Paramount and its current sister studio DreamWorks
, and which also starred Mark Ruffalo), were also shot with the camera but mixed in other formats. Once shot on the Viper camera, the files were converted to DVCPro HD 1080i and edited in Final Cut Pro
. This was for editorial decisions only. During the later stages of editing the original uncompressed 1080p 4:4:4 RAW digital source footage was assembled automatically to maintain an up-to-date digital "negative" of the movie. Other digital productions like Superman Returns
or Apocalypto
recorded to the HDCAM
tape format.
Fincher had previously worked with director of photography
Harris Savides
on Se7en
(he shot the opening credits
) and The Game
. Savides loved the script but realized, “there was so much exposition, just people talking on the phone or having conversations. It was difficult to imagine how it could be done in a visual way.” Fincher and Savides did not want to repeat the look of Se7en. The director's approach to Zodiac was to create a look mundane enough that audiences would accept that what they were watching was the truth. The filmmakers also did not want to glamorize the killer or tell the story through his eyes. “That would have turned the story into a first-person-shooter video game. We didn’t want to make the sort of movie that serial killers would want to own,” Fincher said.
Savides' first experience with the Viper Filmstream camera was shooting a Motorola
commercial with Fincher. From there, he used it on Zodiac. Fincher wanted to make sure that the camera was more inclined towards film production so that the studio would be more comfortable about using it on a project with large budget. To familiarize himself with the camera, he “did as many things ‘wrong’ as I possibly could. I went against everything I was supposed to do with the camera.” Savides felt comfortable with the camera after discovering its limitations.
Fincher and Savides used the photographs of William Eggleston
, Stephen Shore
's work from the early Seventies, and actual photos from the Zodiac police files. The two men worked hard to capture the look and feel of the period as Fincher admitted, “I suppose there could have been more VW bugs
but I think what we show is a pretty good representation of the time. It is not technically perfect. There are some flaws but some are intended.” The San Francisco Chronicle was built in the old post office in the Terminal Annex Building in downtown Los Angeles
. A building on nearby Spring Street subbed for the Hall of Justice and the San Francisco Police Department. Production began on September 12, 2005. The filmmakers shot for five weeks in the San Francisco Bay Area and the rest of the time in Los Angeles, bringing the film in under budget, wrapping in February 2006. The film took 115 days to shoot.
Some of the cast was not happy with Fincher’s exacting ways and perfectionism. Some scenes required upwards of 70 takes. Gyllenhaal was frustrated by the director’s methods and commented in an interview, “You get a take, 5 takes, 10 takes. Some places, 90 takes. But there is a stopping point. There’s a point at which you go, ‘That’s what we have to work with.’ But we would reshoot things. So there came a point where I would say, well, what do I do? Where’s the risk?” Downey said, “I just decided, aside from several times I wanted to garrote
him, that I was going to give him what he wanted. I think I’m a perfect person to work for him, because I understand gulag
s”. Fincher responded, “If an actor is going to let the role come to them, they can’t resent the fact that I’m willing to wait as long as that takes. You know, the first day of production in San Francisco we shot 56 takes of Mark and Jake – and it’s the 56th take that’s in the movie”. Ruffalo also backed up his director’s methods when he said, “The way I see it is, you enter into someone else’s world as an actor. You can put your expectations aside and have an experience that’s new and pushes and changes you, or hold onto what you think it should be and have a stubborn, immovable journey that’s filled with disappointment and anger.”
Digital Domain
handled the bulk of the movie's 200+ effects shots, including pools of blood and bloody fingerprints found at crime scenes. For the murder of Cecelia Shepard that took place at Lake Berryessa, blood seepage and clothing stains were added in post-production. Fincher did not want to shoot the blood with practical effects because wiping everything down after every take would take too long so the murder sequences were done with CG blood.
CG was also used to recreate the San Francisco neighborhood at Washington and Cherry Streets where cab driver Paul Stine was killed. The area had changed significantly over the years and residents didn't want the murder to be re-created in their neighborhood, so Fincher shot the six-minute sequence on a bluescreen stage. Production designer Donald Burt gave the visual effects team detailed drawings of the intersection as it was in 1969. Photographs of every possible angle of the area were shot with a high-resolution digital camera, allowing the effects crew to build computer-based geometric models of homes that were then textured with period facades. 3-D vintage police motorcycles, squad cars, a firetruck and street lights were added to the final shot.
The film's establishing shots of the Bay Area were created by Matte World Digital
. The "helicopter shots" of the fireworks-laden sky over Vallejo, the San Francisco waterfront, and the cab driving through San Francisco were CG, as was the shot looking down from the tower of the Golden Gate Bridge.
A time-lapse sequence showing the building of the Transamerica Pyramid
was a hybrid of 2D and 3D matte painting
. The shot was initially created using reference photos of the Pyramid taken from the rooftop of Francis Ford Coppola's Sentinel Building. MWD's visual effects supervisor, Craig Barron
, then researched the Pyramid's original construction techniques for accuracy in the animated sequence.
The art for the Zodiac poster was also provided by Matte World Digital at Fincher's request. Barron and his crew shot digital photos of the city skyline at night and composited them with a stock photo taken from the top of the Golden Gate Bridge. Layers of fog were added for the final image.
’s cover of “Easy to Be Hard” because “it’s so ingrained in my psyche as being what the summer of ’69 sounded like in northern California”. Initially, Fincher did not envision an original score for the film, but rather a tapestry of sound design, vintage songs of the period, sound bites and clips of [AM radio giant] KFRC and "Mathews Top of the Hill Daly City" (home of a prominent hi-fi dealership of the time). The director told the studio that he did not need a composer and would buy various songs instead. They agreed, but as the film developed, sound designer and longtime Fincher collaborator Ren Klyce felt there were places in some scenes that could have used music. So, he inserted music from one of his favorite soundtracks, David Shire
’s score for The Conversation
and All the President's Men
. Fincher was eager to work with Shire as All the President’s Men was one of his favorite films and one of the primary cinematic influences on Zodiac. He reminded Klyce of the deal that he had made with the studio.
Klyce got in touch with sound and film editor Walter Murch
who worked on The Conversation and he got Klyce in touch with Shire. Fincher sent the composer a copy of the script and flew him in for a meeting and a screening in L.A. At first, Fincher only wanted 15–20 minutes of score and for it to be all based on solo piano. As Shire worked on it and incorporated textures of a Charles Ives
piece called, “The Unanswered Question
” and Conversation-based cues, he found that he had 37 minutes of original music. The orchestra Shire assembled consisted of musicians from the San Francisco Opera and S.F. ballet. Shire said, “There are 12 signs of the Zodiac and there is a way of using atonal and tonal music. So we used 12 tones, never repeating any of them but manipulating them”. He used specific instruments to represent the characters: the trumpet for Toschi, the solo piano for Graysmith and the dissonant strings for the Zodiac killer.
to Donna Summer
.” It was replaced with a title card that reads, “Four years later.” Another cut scene that test screening audiences did not like involved “three guys talking into a speakerphone” to get a search warrant as Toschi and Armstrong talk to SFPD Capt. Marty Lee (Dermot Mulroney
) about their case against suspect Arthur Leigh Allen. Fincher said that this scene would probably be put back on the DVD.
To promote Zodiac, Paramount posted on light-poles in major cities original sketches of the actual Zodiac killer with the words, "In theaters March 2nd," at the bottom. The film was screened in competition at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival
on May 17, 2007 with Fincher and Gyllenhaal participating in a press conference afterwards. The director's cut
of Zodiac was given a rare screening at the Walter Reade
Theater in New York City
on November 19, 2007 with Fincher being interviewed by film critic Kent Jones afterwards.
for Zodiac was released on July 24, 2007 and is available widescreen or fullscreen, presented in anamorphic widescreen, and an English Dolby Digital
5.1 Surround track. There are no extra materials included.
According to David Prior, producer of the subsequent two-disc special edition, the initial bare bones edition "was only reluctantly agreed to by Fincher because I needed more time on the bonus material. The studio was locked into their release date, so Fincher allowed that version to be released first. It had nothing to do with Fincher 'double dipping his own movie before it even makes it to stores' and everything to do with buying more time for the special edition". He stated that the theatrical cut would only be available on the single-disc edition. Prior elaborated further: "Nobody wants fans feeling like they're being taken advantage of, and I know that double-dipping creates that impression. That's why it was so important to me that consumers be told there was another version coming. In this case it really was a rock-and-a-hard place situation, and delaying the second release was done strictly for the benefit of the final product... But this is a very ambitious project, easily the most far-reaching I've ever worked on, and owing largely to studio snafus that I can't really elaborate on, I didn't have enough time to do it properly. Thus Fincher bought me the extra time by agreeing to a staggered release, which I'm very grateful for". In its first week, rentals for the DVD earned $6.7 million.
The two-disc director's cut
DVD and HD DVD
were released on January 8, 2008, with its UK release on Blu-ray
and DVD announced for September 29, 2008. Disc 1 features, in addition to a longer cut of the film, an audio commentary
by Fincher and a second by Gyllenhaal, Downey, Fischer, Vanderbilt, and Ellroy. Disc 2 includes a trailer, a "Zodiac Deciphered" documentary, a "Visual Effects of Zodiac" featurette, previsualization split-screen comparisons for the Blue Rock Springs, Lake Berryessa, and San Francisco murder sequences, a "This is the Zodiac Speaking" featurette, and a "His Name Was Arthur Leigh Allen" featurette. Other extras apparently originally intended for the set, including TV spots and featurettes on "Digital Workflow", "Linguistic Analysis", "Jeopardy Surface: Geographic Profiling" (Dr. Kim Rossmo
's geographic profile
of the Zodiac), and "The Psychology of Aggression: Behavioral Profiling" (Special Agent Sharon Pagaling-Hagan's behavioral profile of the Zodiac) were omitted. However, the latter three featurettes were made available on the film's website. This new version runs five minutes longer than the theatrical cut. For Oscar contention, Paramount distributed the Director's Cut DVD to the Producers Guild of America
, the Writers Guild of America
and the Screen Actors Guild
, instead of the official release version. This was the first time that the studio had done this.
and saw a decline of over 50% in its second weekend, losing out to the record-breaking 300
. It grossed $33 million in North America and $51 million in the rest of the world, bringing its current total to $84 million, above its estimated $75 million production budget. In an interview with Sight & Sound
magazine, Fincher addressed the film's disaster at the North American box office: "Even with the box office being what it is, I still think there's an audience out there for this movie. Everyone has a different idea about marketing, but my philosophy is that if you market a movie to 16-year-old boys and don't deliver Saw
or Se7en
, they're going to be the most vociferous ones coming out of the screening saying 'This movie sucks.' And you're saying goodbye to the audience who would get it because they're going to look at the ads and say, 'I don't want to see some slasher movie
.'"
critic Owen Gleiberman
awarded the film an "A" grade, hailing the film as a "procedural thriller for the information age
" that "spins your head in a new way, luring you into a vortex and then deeper still." Nathan Lee in his review for the Village Voice wrote, "Yet it's his very lack of pretense, coupled with a determination to get the facts down with maximum economy and objectivity, that gives Zodiac its hard, bright integrity. As a crime saga, newspaper drama, and period piece, it works just fine. As an allegory of life in the information age, it blew my mind." Todd McCarthy's review in Variety
praised the film's "almost unerringly accurate evocation of the workaday San Francisco of 35–40 years ago. Forget the distorted emphasis on hippies and flower-power that many such films indulge in; this is the city as it was experienced by most people who lived and worked there." David Ansen
, in his review for Newsweek
magazine, wrote, "Zodiac is meticulously crafted – Harris Savides's state-of-the-art digital cinematography has a richness indistinguishable from film – and it runs almost two hours and 40 minutes. Still, the movie holds you in its grip from start to finish. Fincher boldly (and some may think perversely) withholds the emotional and forensic payoff we're conditioned to expect from a big studio movie."
Some critics, however, were displeased with the film's long running time and lack of action scenes. "The film gets mired in the inevitable red tape of police investigations," wrote Bob Longino of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, who also felt that the film "stumbles to a rather unfulfilling conclusion" and "seems to last as long as the Oscars
." Andrew Sarris
of the New York Observer
felt that "Mr. Fincher’s flair for casting is the major asset of his curiously attenuated return to the serial-killer genre. I keep saying 'curiously' with regard to Mr. Fincher, because I can’t really figure out what he is up to in Zodiac – with its two-hour-and-37-minute running time for what struck me as a shaggy-dog narrative." Christy Lemire wrote in the San Francisco Chronicle
that "Jake Gyllenhaal is both the central figure and the weakest link... But he's never fleshed out sufficiently to make you believe that he'd sacrifice his safety and that of his family to find the truth. We are told repeatedly that the former Eagle Scout is just a genuinely good guy, but that's not enough."
In the United Kingdom, Time Out magazine wrote, "Zodiac isn’t a puzzle film in quite that way; instead its subject is the compulsion to solve puzzles, and its coup is the creeping recognition, quite contrary to the flow of crime cinema, of how fruitless that compulsion can be." Peter Bradshaw in his review for The Guardian
commended the film for its "sheer cinematic virility," and gave it four stars out of five. In his review for Empire
magazine, Kim Newman
gave the film four out of five stars and wrote, "You’ll need patience with the film’s approach, which follows its main characters by poring over details, and be prepared to put up with a couple of rote family arguments and weary cop conversations, but this gripping character study becomes more agonisingly suspenseful as it gets closer to an answer that can’t be confirmed." Graham Fuller in Sight and Sound magazine wrote, "the tone is pleasingly flat and mundane, evoking the demoralising grind of police work in a pre-feminist, pre-technological era. As such, Zodiac is considerably more adult than both Se7en, which salivates over the macabre cat-and-mouse game it plays with the audience, and the macho brinkmanship of Fight Club
." Not all British critics liked the film. David Thompson in the Guardian felt that in relation to the rest of Fincher's career, Zodiac was "the worst yet, a terrible disappointment in which an ingenious and deserving all-American serial killer nearly gets lost in the meandering treatment of cops and journalists obsessed with the case."
In France, Le Monde
newspaper praised Fincher for having "obtained a maturity that impresses by his mastery of form," while Libération
described the film as "a thriller of elegance magnificently photographed by the great Harry Savides." However, Le Figaro
wrote, "No audacity, no invention, nothing but a plot which intrigues without captivating, disturbs without terrifying, interests without exciting."
Zodiac currently has a rating of 89% on Rotten Tomatoes
(81% for their "Cream of the Crop" designation) dubbing it "Certified Fresh", and a 78 metascore at Metacritic
.
and There Will Be Blood
). Some of the notable top-ten list appearances are:
, Chicago Film Critics Association, and the Satellite Awards.
Mystery film
Mystery film is a sub-genre of the more general category of crime film and at times the thriller genre. It focuses on the efforts of the detective, private investigator or amateur sleuth to solve the mysterious circumstances of a crime by means of clues, investigation, and clever deduction.The...
-thriller film directed by David Fincher
David Fincher
David Andrew Leo Fincher is an American film and music video director. Known for his dark and stylish thrillers, such as Seven , The Game , Fight Club , Panic Room , and Zodiac , Fincher received Academy Award nominations for Best Director for his 2008 film The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and...
and based on Robert Graysmith
Robert Graysmith
Robert Graysmith is an American true crime author. He was working as a political cartoonist for the San Francisco Chronicle in 1969 when the Zodiac Killer case came to light. Graysmith attempted to decode letters written by the killer...
's non-fiction book of the same name
Zodiac (book)
Zodiac is a non-fiction book written by Robert Graysmith about the unsolved serial murders committed by the "Zodiac Killer" in San Francisco in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Since its initial release in 1986, Zodiac has sold 4 million copies worldwide...
. The Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
and Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
joint production stars Jake Gyllenhaal
Jake Gyllenhaal
Jacob Benjamin "Jake" Gyllenhaal is an American actor. The son of director Stephen Gyllenhaal and screenwriter Naomi Foner, Gyllenhaal began acting at age ten...
, Mark Ruffalo
Mark Ruffalo
Mark Alan Ruffalo is an American actor, director, producer and screenwriter. He starred in films such as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Zodiac, Shutter Island, Just Like Heaven, You Can Count on Me and The Kids Are All Right for which he received an Academy Award nomination for Best...
, and Robert Downey, Jr.
Zodiac tells the story of the hunt for a notorious serial killer
Serial killer
A serial killer, as typically defined, is an individual who has murdered three or more people over a period of more than a month, with down time between the murders, and whose motivation for killing is usually based on psychological gratification...
known as "Zodiac
Zodiac Killer
The Zodiac Killer was a serial killer who operated in Northern California in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The killer's identity remains unknown. The Zodiac murdered victims in Benicia, Vallejo, Lake Berryessa and San Francisco between December 1968 and October 1969. Four men and three women...
" who killed in and around the San Francisco Bay Area
San Francisco Bay Area
The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a populated region that surrounds the San Francisco and San Pablo estuaries in Northern California. The region encompasses metropolitan areas of San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose, along with smaller urban and rural areas...
during the late 1960s and early 1970s, leaving several victims in his wake and taunting police with letters and cipher
Cipher
In cryptography, a cipher is an algorithm for performing encryption or decryption — a series of well-defined steps that can be followed as a procedure. An alternative, less common term is encipherment. In non-technical usage, a “cipher” is the same thing as a “code”; however, the concepts...
s mailed to newspapers. The case remains one of San Francisco's most infamous unsolved crimes.
Fincher, screenwriter
Screenwriter
Screenwriters or scriptwriters or scenario writers are people who write/create the short or feature-length screenplays from which mass media such as films, television programs, Comics or video games are based.-Profession:...
James Vanderbilt, and producer Brad Fischer spent 18 months conducting their own investigation and research into the Zodiac murders. During filming, Fincher employed the digital Thomson Viper Filmstream camera to shoot the film. Contrary to popular belief, Zodiac was not shot entirely digitally; traditional high-speed film cameras were used for slow-motion murder sequences.
Reviews for the film were highly positive. However, it did not perform strongly at the North American box office
Box office
A box office is a place where tickets are sold to the public for admission to an event. Patrons may perform the transaction at a countertop, through an unblocked hole through a wall or window, or at a wicket....
, grossing only USD
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
$33 million. It performed better in other parts of the world, earning $51 million. This brought its box office total to $84 million, with a budget of $65 million spent on its production.
Plot
The film opens on July 4, 1969, with the Zodiac killer’s second attack, the shooting of Darlene Ferrin (Ciara Hughes) and Mike Mageau (Lee NorrisLee Norris
Lee Michael Norris is an American actor, best known for his roles as Stuart Minkus on Boy Meets World and Marvin "Mouth" McFadden on One Tree Hill.-Early life:...
) at a lovers' lane in Vallejo, California
Vallejo, California
Vallejo is the largest city in Solano County, California, United States. The population was 115,942 at the 2010 census. It is located in the San Francisco Bay Area on the northeastern shore of San Pablo Bay...
. Mageau survives while Ferrin dies from her injuries.
One month later, a letter written by the Zodiac arrives at the San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle
thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...
. Paul Avery
Paul Avery
Paul Avery was an American police reporter, best known for his stories on the infamous serial killer known as the Zodiac, and later for his work on the Patricia Hearst kidnapping.-Career:...
(Robert Downey, Jr.) is a Chronicle crime reporter. Robert Graysmith
Robert Graysmith
Robert Graysmith is an American true crime author. He was working as a political cartoonist for the San Francisco Chronicle in 1969 when the Zodiac Killer case came to light. Graysmith attempted to decode letters written by the killer...
(Jake Gyllenhaal
Jake Gyllenhaal
Jacob Benjamin "Jake" Gyllenhaal is an American actor. The son of director Stephen Gyllenhaal and screenwriter Naomi Foner, Gyllenhaal began acting at age ten...
) is a political cartoonist there. The newspaper receives encrypted letters that the killer sends, taunting the police. Because of Graysmith's status as a cartoonist, he is not taken seriously by Avery and the editors and is excluded from the initial details about the killings despite his interest in the case. In particular, he is drawn to the encrypted code that is included with the letters and is given access to one. When he is able to crack one of the codes and makes several correct guesses about the killer's actions, Avery begins sharing information with him.
The Zodiac killer attacks again, stabbing Bryan Hartnell (Patrick Scott Lewis
Patrick Scott Lewis
Patrick Scott Lewis is an American TV, film and theatre actor.He studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. His screen career began with the role of Paul on NBC's American Dreams...
) and Cecelia Shepard (Pell James
Pell James
-Life and career:James grew up in Virginia with three sisters. In the early 2000s, she worked on the hit television series Law & Order and Law & Order:SVU. In 2005, she briefly appeared in the Jim Jarmusch film Broken Flowers and earned her first starring role for the film The King...
) at Lake Berryessa
Lake Berryessa
Lake Berryessa is the largest lake in Napa County, California. This reservoir is formed by the Monticello Dam, which provides water and hydroelectricity to the North Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area....
in Napa County. Shepard dies as a result of the attack, while Hartnell survives. Soon afterward, San Francisco taxicab driver Paul Stine is shot and killed in the city's Presidio Heights district. San Francisco police detectives Dave Toschi
Dave Toschi
Dave Toschi is a former inspector in the San Francisco Police Department, where he served from 1952 to 1983. He is best known for his role as a chief investigator in the Zodiac Killer case, which he began work on after the murder of taxi driver Paul Stine.Toschi is currently vice president of...
(Mark Ruffalo
Mark Ruffalo
Mark Alan Ruffalo is an American actor, director, producer and screenwriter. He starred in films such as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Zodiac, Shutter Island, Just Like Heaven, You Can Count on Me and The Kids Are All Right for which he received an Academy Award nomination for Best...
) and his partner Bill Armstrong (Anthony Edwards
Anthony Edwards
Anthony Charles Edwards is an American actor and director. He has appeared in various movies and television shows, including Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Top Gun, Zodiac, Revenge of the Nerds, Northern Exposure and ER.-Early life:Edwards was born in Santa Barbara, California, the son of Erika...
) are assigned to the case, liaising with other detectives such as Jack Mulanax (Elias Koteas
Elias Koteas
Elias Koteas is a Canadian actor of film and television, best known for his roles in The Prophecy, Fallen and the live-action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles films.-Early life:...
) in Vallejo and Ken Narlow (Donal Logue
Donal Logue
Donal Francis Logue is an Canadian actor perhaps most famous for his role as Sean Finnerty in Grounded for Life.-Personal life:...
) in Napa. The killer, or someone posing as him, continues to toy with authorities by speaking on the phone with celebrity lawyer Melvin Belli
Melvin Belli
Melvin Mouron Belli was a prominent American lawyer known as "The King of Torts" and by detractors as 'Melvin Bellicose'. He had many celebrity clients, including Zsa Zsa Gabor, Errol Flynn, Chuck Berry, Muhammad Ali, Sirhan Sirhan, the Rolling Stones, Jim Bakker and Tammy Faye Bakker, Martha...
(Brian Cox) when he makes an appearance on a television talk show. Avery and Graysmith form an alliance, delving deeper into the case.
In 1971, Toschi, Armstrong and Mulanax question Arthur Leigh Allen
Arthur Leigh Allen
Arthur Leigh Allen was the primary suspect in the Zodiac Killer investigation. While being investigated, Allen passed a polygraph test, had his fingerprints compared to those at the murder scene of known Zodiac victim Paul Stine and had his handwriting examined...
(John Carroll Lynch
John Carroll Lynch
John Carroll Lynch is an American actor, known for his role as Drew Carey's cross-dressing brother on The Drew Carey Show, and for his role as Norm, the unassuming husband of Margie Gunderson in Fargo....
), a potential suspect in the case. However, a handwriting expert
Questioned document examination
Questioned document examination is the forensic science discipline pertaining to documents that are in dispute in a court of law...
(Philip Baker Hall
Philip Baker Hall
-Early life:Hall was born in Toledo, Ohio, the son of a factory worker father who was from Montgomery, Alabama. He attended the University of Toledo. As a younger man, Hall served in the military, started a family, and became a high school English teacher. In 1961, he decided to become an actor...
) insists that Allen did not write the Zodiac letters. Avery receives a new letter threatening his life. He becomes increasingly paranoid and turns to drugs and alcohol. At one point, he shares information with a rival police force which angers Toschi and Armstrong.
By 1975, Avery leaves the Chronicle. Armstrong quits the homicide division, and Toschi is demoted for supposedly forging a Zodiac letter. Graysmith, meanwhile, continues his own in-depth investigation, interviewing witnesses and police detectives involved in the case. Obsessing over the unsolved case, he begins receiving anonymous phone calls with heavy breathing (on the night of Ferrin's death, Graysmith discovered that someone prank-called the victim's family and did the same thing). Because of his submersion in the case, Graysmith loses his job and his wife Melanie (Chloë Sevigny
Chloë Sevigny
Chloë Stevens Sevigny is an American film actress, fashion designer and former model. Sevigny gained reputation for her eclectic fashion sense and developed a broad career in the fashion industry in the mid 1990s, both for modeling and for her work at New York's Sassy magazine, which labeled her...
) leaves him, taking their children with her.
Graysmith persistently contacts Toschi about the Zodiac murders and eventually impresses the veteran detective with his knowledge of the case. While Toschi cannot directly give Graysmith access to the information he discovered over the years, he provides contacts of other police departments in counties where the other murders occurred. The cartoonist acquires more information that points to Allen as the Zodiac, and although circumstantial evidence
Circumstantial evidence
Circumstantial evidence is evidence in which an inference is required to connect it to a conclusion of fact, like a fingerprint at the scene of a crime...
seems to indicate his guilt, the hard evidence, such as fingerprints and handwriting samples, exonerate him.
In December 1983, a full 14 years after the original slayings, Graysmith tracks down Allen to a Vallejo hardware store, where he is employed as a salesclerk. After Allen asks if he can help Graysmith with anything, they stare at each other for a moment with blank expressions before Graysmith simply replies with a 'No,' and leaves the hardware store.
Eight years later, in 1991, Mageau (Jimmi Simpson
Jimmi Simpson
James Raymond "Jimmi" Simpson is an American actor. He has had recurring roles on the television shows 24, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Psych, My Name Is Earl, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and The Late Show with David Letterman...
) meets with authorities and identifies Allen from a police mugshot
Mug book
A mug book is a collection of photographs of criminals, typically in mug shots taken at the time of an arrest. A mug book is used by an eyewitness to a crime, with the assistance of law enforcement, in an effort to identify the perpetrator...
.
Final title cards, however, inform the audience that Allen died in 1992 before he could be further questioned by police, and that DNA tests performed in 2002 did not match samples gathered from the Zodiac letters.
Cast
- Jake GyllenhaalJake GyllenhaalJacob Benjamin "Jake" Gyllenhaal is an American actor. The son of director Stephen Gyllenhaal and screenwriter Naomi Foner, Gyllenhaal began acting at age ten...
as Robert GraysmithRobert GraysmithRobert Graysmith is an American true crime author. He was working as a political cartoonist for the San Francisco Chronicle in 1969 when the Zodiac Killer case came to light. Graysmith attempted to decode letters written by the killer...
, a cartoonist for the San Francisco Chronicle. While researching the film, Fincher considered Gyllenhaal to play Graysmith. According to the director, "I really liked him in Donnie DarkoDonnie DarkoDonnie Darko is a 2001 American psychological thriller film written and directed by Richard Kelly and starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Drew Barrymore, Patrick Swayze, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Noah Wyle, Jena Malone, and Mary McDonnell...
and I thought, He’s an interesting double-sided coin. He can do that naive thing but he can also do possessed." To prepare for his role, Gyllenhaal met Graysmith and videotaped him in order to study his mannerisms and behavior. - Mark RuffaloMark RuffaloMark Alan Ruffalo is an American actor, director, producer and screenwriter. He starred in films such as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Zodiac, Shutter Island, Just Like Heaven, You Can Count on Me and The Kids Are All Right for which he received an Academy Award nomination for Best...
as SFPD InspectorInspectorInspector is both a police rank and an administrative position, both used in a number of contexts. However, it is not an equivalent rank in each police force.- Australia :...
David Toschi. Initially Ruffalo was not interested in the project but Fincher wanted him to play Toschi. He met with the actor and told him that he was rewriting the screenplay. "I loved what he was saying and loved where he was going with it," the actor remembers. For research, he read every report on the case and read all the books on the subject. Ruffalo met Toschi and found out that he had "perfect recall of the details and what happened when, where, who was there, what he was wearing. He always knew what he was wearing. I think it is seared into who he is and it was a big deal for him." - Robert Downey, Jr. as Paul AveryPaul AveryPaul Avery was an American police reporter, best known for his stories on the infamous serial killer known as the Zodiac, and later for his work on the Patricia Hearst kidnapping.-Career:...
, a journalist at the San Francisco Chronicle who covered the Zodiac killer case. Originally, Fincher had wanted to cast frequent collaborator Brad PittBrad PittWilliam Bradley "Brad" Pitt is an American actor and film producer. Pitt has received two Academy Award nominations and four Golden Globe Award nominations, winning one...
as Avery, given the physical resemblance between the two men. - Anthony EdwardsAnthony EdwardsAnthony Charles Edwards is an American actor and director. He has appeared in various movies and television shows, including Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Top Gun, Zodiac, Revenge of the Nerds, Northern Exposure and ER.-Early life:Edwards was born in Santa Barbara, California, the son of Erika...
as SFPD InspectorInspectorInspector is both a police rank and an administrative position, both used in a number of contexts. However, it is not an equivalent rank in each police force.- Australia :...
William Armstrong. When casting the role, Fincher said he thought of Edwards because "I knew I needed the most decent person I could find, because he would be the balance of the movie. In a weird way, this movie wouldn’t exist without Bill Armstrong. Everything we know about the Zodiac case, we know because of his notes. So in casting the part, I wanted to get someone who is totally reliable." - Brian Cox as Melvin BelliMelvin BelliMelvin Mouron Belli was a prominent American lawyer known as "The King of Torts" and by detractors as 'Melvin Bellicose'. He had many celebrity clients, including Zsa Zsa Gabor, Errol Flynn, Chuck Berry, Muhammad Ali, Sirhan Sirhan, the Rolling Stones, Jim Bakker and Tammy Faye Bakker, Martha...
, a prominent defense attorney who received a letter from the Zodiac killer. - John Carroll LynchJohn Carroll LynchJohn Carroll Lynch is an American actor, known for his role as Drew Carey's cross-dressing brother on The Drew Carey Show, and for his role as Norm, the unassuming husband of Margie Gunderson in Fargo....
as Arthur Leigh AllenArthur Leigh AllenArthur Leigh Allen was the primary suspect in the Zodiac Killer investigation. While being investigated, Allen passed a polygraph test, had his fingerprints compared to those at the murder scene of known Zodiac victim Paul Stine and had his handwriting examined...
, a prime suspect in the case. Allen was never charged with these crimes. - Chloë SevignyChloë SevignyChloë Stevens Sevigny is an American film actress, fashion designer and former model. Sevigny gained reputation for her eclectic fashion sense and developed a broad career in the fashion industry in the mid 1990s, both for modeling and for her work at New York's Sassy magazine, which labeled her...
as Melanie Graysmith, Graysmith's wife. - Elias KoteasElias KoteasElias Koteas is a Canadian actor of film and television, best known for his roles in The Prophecy, Fallen and the live-action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles films.-Early life:...
as Sgt. Jack Mulanax, a police detective from Vallejo. - Dermot MulroneyDermot Mulroney-Early life:Mulroney was born in Alexandria, Virginia, the son of Ellen, a housewife and amateur actress originally from Manchester, Iowa, and Michael Mulroney, a law professor at Villanova University School of Law, originally from Elkader, Iowa. He has a sister, Moira, and three brothers, Conor,...
as Captain Marty Lee, Armstrong's and Toschi's supervisor in the SFPD homicide division. - Donal LogueDonal LogueDonal Francis Logue is an Canadian actor perhaps most famous for his role as Sean Finnerty in Grounded for Life.-Personal life:...
as Ken Narlow, a police detective in Napa. - John GetzJohn Getz-Personal life:Getz, one of four children, was born in Davenport, Iowa, and grew up in the Mississippi River Valley. He began acting while attending the University of Iowa, where he helped found the Center for New Performing Arts...
as Templeton Peck, Chronicle managing editor. - John TerryJohn Terry (actor)John Terry is an American film, television, and stage actor.-Early life:Terry was born in Florida, where he attended Vero Beach High School. He was also educated at the prestigious Loomis Chaffee prep school in Windsor, Connecticut, and began a career building original custom log homes in North...
as Charles Thieriot, another editor at the Chronicle, who is involved with the first Zodiac letter. - Philip Baker HallPhilip Baker Hall-Early life:Hall was born in Toledo, Ohio, the son of a factory worker father who was from Montgomery, Alabama. He attended the University of Toledo. As a younger man, Hall served in the military, started a family, and became a high school English teacher. In 1961, he decided to become an actor...
as Sherwood Morrill, a handwriting analyst. - Adam GoldbergAdam GoldbergAdam Charles Goldberg is an American actor, director, producer, and musician.-Early life:Goldberg was born in Santa Monica, California, the son of Donna and Earl Goldberg, a former lifeguard. His father is Jewish and his mother is a "lapsed" Roman Catholic of Irish, French, and German descent...
as Duffy Jennings, a journalist who replaced Avery at the San Francisco Chronicle when the latter went to the San Francisco Examiner. He received a letter from the Zodiac in 1978. - Zach GrenierZach GrenierZach Grenier is an American actor who has worked in film, television and on stage.He appeared in the first season of the television show 24 as Carl Webb, was in Deadwood, and on several episodes of Law & Order...
as Mel Nicolai - Ciara Hughes as Darlene Ferrin
- Lee NorrisLee NorrisLee Michael Norris is an American actor, best known for his roles as Stuart Minkus on Boy Meets World and Marvin "Mouth" McFadden on One Tree Hill.-Early life:...
as young Micheal Mageau - Jimmi SimpsonJimmi SimpsonJames Raymond "Jimmi" Simpson is an American actor. He has had recurring roles on the television shows 24, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Psych, My Name Is Earl, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and The Late Show with David Letterman...
as Micheal Mageau - Pell JamesPell James-Life and career:James grew up in Virginia with three sisters. In the early 2000s, she worked on the hit television series Law & Order and Law & Order:SVU. In 2005, she briefly appeared in the Jim Jarmusch film Broken Flowers and earned her first starring role for the film The King...
as Cecelia Shepard - Patrick Scott LewisPatrick Scott LewisPatrick Scott Lewis is an American TV, film and theatre actor.He studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. His screen career began with the role of Paul on NBC's American Dreams...
as Bryan Hartnell - James LeGrosJames LeGrosJames LeGros is an American film and television actor. He is known as a star of independent films with a diversified body of work in the early to mid 1990s.-Personal life:...
as Officer George Bawart - Charles FleischerCharles FleischerCharles Fleischer is an American actor, stand-up comedian and voice artist.-Life and career:Fleischer was born in Washington, D.C. As a child, he is reported to have spent several summers at Kamp Kewanee in La Plume, Pennsylvania, where he started practicing his stand-up routine at age nine...
as Bob Vaughn - Clea DuVallClea DuVallClea Helen D'Etienne DuVall is an American actress. She is best known for her role as Sofie on the television series Carnivàle as well as for films such as The Faculty , Girl, Interrupted and The Grudge .-Early life:DuVall was born in Los Angeles, California, the only child of Rosemary and...
as Linda del Buono
Development
James VanderbiltJames Vanderbilt
James Platten Vanderbilt is an American screenwriter.A member of the Vanderbilt family of New York, he is the son of Alison Campbell and Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt III...
had read Robert Graysmith
Robert Graysmith
Robert Graysmith is an American true crime author. He was working as a political cartoonist for the San Francisco Chronicle in 1969 when the Zodiac Killer case came to light. Graysmith attempted to decode letters written by the killer...
's book Zodiac in 1986 while in high school. Years later, he became a screenwriter
Screenwriter
Screenwriters or scriptwriters or scenario writers are people who write/create the short or feature-length screenplays from which mass media such as films, television programs, Comics or video games are based.-Profession:...
, met Graysmith and became fascinated by the folklore surrounding the Zodiac killer and attempted to translate that into his script. Vanderbilt had endured bad experiences with the endings of his scripts being changed and wanted more control over his material. He pitched his adaptation of Zodiac to Mike Medavoy
Mike Medavoy
Morris Mike Medavoy is an American film producer and executive, co-founder of Orion Pictures , former chairman of TriStar Pictures, former head of production for United Artists and current chairman and CEO of Phoenix Pictures.-Early life and career:Medavoy was born in Shanghai, China in 1941 to...
and Bradley J. Fischer from Phoenix Pictures, by agreeing to write a spec script
Spec script
A spec script, also known as a speculative screenplay, is a non-commissioned unsolicited screenplay. It is usually written by a screenwriter who hopes to have the script optioned and eventually purchased by a producer, production company, or studio....
if he could have more creative control over it.
Graysmith first met Fischer and Vanderbilt at the premiere of Paul Schrader
Paul Schrader
Paul Joseph Schrader is an American screenwriter, film director, and former film critic. Apart from his credentials as a director, Schrader is most notably known for his screenplays for Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver and Raging Bull....
's film, Auto Focus
Auto Focus
Auto Focus is a 2002 American biographical film directed by Paul Schrader that stars Greg Kinnear and Willem Dafoe. The screenplay by Michael Gerbosi is based on the book The Murder of Bob Crane by Robert Graysmith....
, which was based on Graysmith's 1991 book about the life and death of actor Bob Crane
Bob Crane
Robert Edward "Bob" Crane was an American actor and disc jockey, best known for his performance as Colonel Robert E...
. A deal was made and they optioned the rights to Zodiac and Zodiac Unmasked when they became available after languishing at Disney
Walt Disney Pictures
Walt Disney Pictures is an American film studio owned by The Walt Disney Company. Walt Disney Pictures and Television, a subsidiary of the Walt Disney Studios and the main production company for live-action feature films within the Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group, based at the Walt Disney...
for nearly a decade.
David Fincher
David Fincher
David Andrew Leo Fincher is an American film and music video director. Known for his dark and stylish thrillers, such as Seven , The Game , Fight Club , Panic Room , and Zodiac , Fincher received Academy Award nominations for Best Director for his 2008 film The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and...
was their first choice to direct based on his work on Se7en
Se7en
Seven is a 1995 American thriller film, which also contains horror and neo-noir elements, directed by David Fincher and written by Andrew Kevin Walker. It was distributed by New Line Cinema and stars Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman, Gwyneth Paltrow, R...
. Originally, he was going to direct an adaptation of James Ellroy
James Ellroy
Lee Earle "James" Ellroy is an American crime fiction writer and essayist. Ellroy has become known for a so-called "telegraphic" prose style in his most recent work, wherein he frequently omits connecting words and uses only short, staccato sentences, and in particular for the novels The Black...
’s novel, The Black Dahlia
The Black Dahlia (novel)
The Black Dahlia is a neo-noir crime novel by American author James Ellroy, taking inspiration from the true story of the murder of Elizabeth Short. It is widely considered to be the book that elevated Ellroy out of typical genre fiction status, and with which he started to garner critical...
(later filmed by Brian De Palma
Brian De Palma
Brian Russell De Palma is an American film director and writer. In a career spanning over 40 years, he is probably best known for his suspense and crime thriller films, including such box office successes as the horror film Carrie, Dressed to Kill, Scarface, The Untouchables, and Mission:...
), and envisioned a five-hour, $80 million mini-series with movie stars. When the studio backing it did not agree, the director left the project and moved on to Zodiac. He was given Vanderbilt’s 158-page screenplay in late 2003.
Fincher was drawn to this story because he spent much of his childhood in San Anselmo in Marin County during the initial Zodiac murders. "I remember coming home and saying the highway patrol had been following our school buses for a couple weeks now. And my dad, who worked from home, and who was very dry, not one to soft-pedal things, turned slowly in his chair and said: ‘Oh yeah. There’s a serial killer who has killed four or five people, who calls himself Zodiac, who’s threatened to take a high-powered rifle and shoot out the tires of a school bus, and then shoot the children as they come off the bus.’". For Fincher as a young boy, the killer "was the ultimate boogeyman". The director was also drawn to the unresolved ending of Vanderbilt's screenplay because it felt true to real life where cases are not always solved.
Fincher realized that his job was to dispel the mythic stature the case had taken on over the years by clearly defining what was fact and what was fiction. He told Vanderbilt that he wanted the screenplay re-written but with additional research done from the original police reports. Fincher found that there was a lot of speculation and hearsay
Hearsay in United States law
Hearsay is the legal term for testimony in a court proceeding where the witness does not have direct knowledge of the fact asserted, but knows it only from being told by someone. In general the witness will make a statement such as, "Sally told me Tom was in town," as opposed to "I saw Tom in...
and wanted to interview people directly involved in the case in person to see if he believed what they were telling him. Fincher did this because he felt a burden of responsibility in making a film that convicted someone posthumously.
The director, Fischer and Vanderbilt spent months interviewing witnesses, family members of suspects, retired and current investigators, the only two surviving victims, and the mayors of San Francisco and Vallejo. Fincher said, “Even when we did our own interviews, we would talk to two people. One would confirm some aspects of it and another would deny it. Plus, so much time had passed, memories are affected and the different telling of the stories would change perception. So when there was any doubt we always went with the police reports”. During the course of their research, Fincher and Fischer hired Gerald McMenamin, an internationally known forensic linguistics
Forensic linguistics
Forensic linguistics is the application of linguistic knowledge, methods and insights to the forensic context of law, language, crime investigation, trial, and judicial procedure. It is a branch of applied linguistics...
expert and professor of linguistics at California State University Fresno, to analyze the Zodiac’s letters. Unlike document examiners in the 1970s, he focused on the language of the Zodiac and how he formed his sentences in terms of word structure and spelling.
Fincher and Fischer approached Sony Pictures Entertainment
Sony Pictures Entertainment
Sony Pictures Entertainment, Inc. is the television and film production/distribution unit of Japanese multinational technology and media conglomerate Sony...
to finance the film but talks with them fell through because the studio wanted the running time fixed at two hours and fifteen minutes. They then approached other studios, and Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
and Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
agreed to share the production costs and were willing to be more flexible about the running time. The film was a tough sell to the studios and the executives were concerned about the heavy amount of dialogue and the lack of action scenes, as well as the inconclusive nature of the story arc.
When Dave Toschi met Fincher, Fischer and Vanderbilt, the director told him that he was not going to make another Dirty Harry
Dirty Harry
Dirty Harry is a 1971 American crime thriller produced and directed by Don Siegel, the first in the Dirty Harry series. Clint Eastwood plays the title role, in his first outing as San Francisco Police Department Inspector "Dirty" Harry Callahan....
(which had been loosely based on the Zodiac case). Toschi was impressed with their knowledge of the case and afterwards, he realized that he had learned a lot from them. In addition, the Zodiac’s two surviving victims, Mike Mageau and Bryan Hartnell were consultants on the film.
Alan J. Pakula
Alan J. Pakula
Alan Jay Pakula was an American film director, writer and producer noted for his contributions to the conspiracy thriller genre.-Career:...
’s film All the President's Men
All the President's Men (film)
All the President's Men is a 1976 Academy Award-winning political thriller film based on the 1974 non-fiction book of the same name by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, the two journalists investigating the Watergate scandal for The Washington Post...
was the template for Zodiac as Fincher felt that it was also “the story of a reporter determined to get the story at any cost and one who was new to being an investigative reporter. It was all about his obsession to know the truth”. And like in that film, he did not want to spend time telling the back story of any of the characters, focusing, instead, on what they did in regards to the case.”
Vanderbilt was drawn to the notion that Graysmith went from a cartoonist to one of the most significant investigators of the case. He pitched the story as: “What if Garry Trudeau
Garry Trudeau
Garretson Beekman "Garry" Trudeau is an American cartoonist, best known for the Doonesbury comic strip.-Background and education:...
woke up one morning and tried to solve the Son of Sam”? As he worked on the script, he became friends with Graysmith and consulted him often. The filmmakers were able to get the cooperation of the Vallejo Police Department (one of the key investigators at the time) because they hoped that the movie would inspire someone to come forward with a crucial bit of information that might help solve this decades-old cold case.
Casting
While researching the film, Fincher considered Jake GyllenhaalJake Gyllenhaal
Jacob Benjamin "Jake" Gyllenhaal is an American actor. The son of director Stephen Gyllenhaal and screenwriter Naomi Foner, Gyllenhaal began acting at age ten...
to play Robert Graysmith
Robert Graysmith
Robert Graysmith is an American true crime author. He was working as a political cartoonist for the San Francisco Chronicle in 1969 when the Zodiac Killer case came to light. Graysmith attempted to decode letters written by the killer...
. According to the director, “I really liked him in Donnie Darko
Donnie Darko
Donnie Darko is a 2001 American psychological thriller film written and directed by Richard Kelly and starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Drew Barrymore, Patrick Swayze, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Noah Wyle, Jena Malone, and Mary McDonnell...
and I thought, ‘He’s an interesting double-sided coin. He can do that naive thing but he can also do possessed.’” To prepare for his role, Gyllenhaal met Graysmith and videotaped him in order to study his mannerisms and behavior.
Initially, Mark Ruffalo
Mark Ruffalo
Mark Alan Ruffalo is an American actor, director, producer and screenwriter. He starred in films such as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Zodiac, Shutter Island, Just Like Heaven, You Can Count on Me and The Kids Are All Right for which he received an Academy Award nomination for Best...
was not interested in the project but Fincher wanted him to play David Toschi. He met with the actor and told him that he was rewriting the screenplay. “I loved what he was saying and loved where he was going with it”, the actor remembers. For research, he read every report on the case and read all the books on the subject. Ruffalo met Toschi and found out that he had “perfect recall of the details and what happened when, where, who was there, what he was wearing. He always knew what he was wearing. I think it is seared into who he is and it was a big deal for him.”
When casting the role of Inspector William Armstrong, Fincher said he thought of Anthony Edwards
Anthony Edwards
Anthony Charles Edwards is an American actor and director. He has appeared in various movies and television shows, including Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Top Gun, Zodiac, Revenge of the Nerds, Northern Exposure and ER.-Early life:Edwards was born in Santa Barbara, California, the son of Erika...
because "I knew I needed the most decent person I could find, because he would be the balance of the movie. In a weird way, this movie wouldn’t exist without Bill Armstrong. Everything we know about the Zodiac case, we know because of his notes. So in casting the part, I wanted to get someone who is totally reliable."
Originally, Gary Oldman
Gary Oldman
Gary Leonard Oldman is an English actor, voice actor, filmmaker and musician.A member of the 1980s Brit Pack, Oldman came to prominence via starring roles in British films Meantime , Sid and Nancy and Prick Up Your Ears , with his performance in the latter bringing him his first BAFTA Award...
was to play Melvin Belli
Melvin Belli
Melvin Mouron Belli was a prominent American lawyer known as "The King of Torts" and by detractors as 'Melvin Bellicose'. He had many celebrity clients, including Zsa Zsa Gabor, Errol Flynn, Chuck Berry, Muhammad Ali, Sirhan Sirhan, the Rolling Stones, Jim Bakker and Tammy Faye Bakker, Martha...
but "he went to a lot of trouble, they had appliances, but just physically it wasn't going to work, he just didn't have the girth", Graysmith remembers. Brian Cox was cast instead.
The finished film has an unusually large cast of characters. In a May 15, 2007, film review, Variety noted, "Performances and casting are impeccable down to the smallest role."
Principal photography
Fincher decided to use the digital Thomson Viper Filmstream camera to shoot the film. Fincher had previously used the Thomson Viper over the past three years on commercials for NikeNike, Inc.
Nike, Inc. is a major publicly traded sportswear and equipment supplier based in the United States. The company is headquartered near Beaverton, Oregon, which is part of the Portland metropolitan area...
, Hewlett Packard, Heineken
Heineken
Heineken is a Dutch beer which has been brewed by Heineken International since 1873. It is available in a 4.6% alcohol variety in countries such as Ireland. It is the flagship product of the Heineken company and is made of purified water, malted barley, hops, and yeast. In 1886 H...
and Lexus
Lexus
is the luxury vehicle division of Japanese automaker Toyota Motor Corporation. First introduced in 1989 in the United States, Lexus is now sold globally and has become Japan's largest-selling make of premium cars. The Lexus marque is marketed in over 70 countries and territories worldwide, and has...
which allowed him to get used to and experiment with the equipment. Working with digital cameras allowed him to watch what he had just shot in full resolution, experience less equipment failure than with film, and thereby eliminated things like film negative damage, and reduce costs in post-production. He was able to use inexpensive desktop software like Final Cut Pro
Final Cut Pro
Final Cut Pro is a non-linear video editing software developed by Macromedia Inc. and then Apple Inc. The most recent version, Final Cut Pro X, runs on Mac personal computers powered by Mac OS X version 10.6.7 or later and using Intel processors...
to edit Zodiac. Fincher remarked in an interview, "Dailies
Dailies
Dailies, in filmmaking, are the raw, unedited footage shot during the making of a motion picture. They are so called because usually at the end of each day, that day's footage is developed, synched to sound, and printed on film in a batch for viewing the next day by the director and some members...
almost always end up being disappointing, like the veil is pierced and you look at it for the first time and think, 'Oh my god, this is what I really have to work with.' But when you can see what you have as it's gathered, it can be a much less neurotic process."
Zodiac was the first production to employ the Filmstream camera in its native Filmstream mode, which records an uncompressed video stream, allowing for exceptional quality.
Contrary to popular belief, Zodiac was not shot entirely digitally; traditional high-speed film cameras were used for slow-motion murder sequences. Michael Mann's
Michael Mann (film director)
Michael Kenneth Mann is an American film director, screenwriter, and producer. For his work, he has received nominations from international organizations and juries, including those at the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, Cannes and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences...
Miami Vice
Miami Vice (film)
Miami Vice is a 2006 American crime drama film about two Miami police detectives, Crockett and Tubbs, who go undercover to fight drug trafficking operations. The film is a loose adaptation of the 1980s TV series of the same name, written, produced, and directed by Michael Mann...
, as well as his previous effort, Collateral
Collateral (film)
Collateral is a 2004 crime thriller film starring Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx. It was directed by Michael Mann and written by Stuart Beattie. It was Mann's first feature film to be shot mostly with high-definition cameras. Mann had previously used the format for portions of Ali and for his CBS drama...
(a co-production of Paramount and its current sister studio DreamWorks
DreamWorks
DreamWorks Pictures, also known as DreamWorks, LLC, DreamWorks SKG, DreamWorks II Distribution Co., LLC, DreamWorks Studios or DW Studios, LLC, is an American film studio which develops, produces, and distributes films, video games and television programming...
, and which also starred Mark Ruffalo), were also shot with the camera but mixed in other formats. Once shot on the Viper camera, the files were converted to DVCPro HD 1080i and edited in Final Cut Pro
Final Cut Pro
Final Cut Pro is a non-linear video editing software developed by Macromedia Inc. and then Apple Inc. The most recent version, Final Cut Pro X, runs on Mac personal computers powered by Mac OS X version 10.6.7 or later and using Intel processors...
. This was for editorial decisions only. During the later stages of editing the original uncompressed 1080p 4:4:4 RAW digital source footage was assembled automatically to maintain an up-to-date digital "negative" of the movie. Other digital productions like Superman Returns
Superman Returns
Superman Returns is a 2006 superhero film directed by Bryan Singer. It is the fifth and final installment in the original Superman film series and serves as a alternate sequel to Superman and Superman II by ignoring the events of Superman III and Superman IV: The Quest for Peace .The film stars...
or Apocalypto
Apocalypto
Apocalypto is a 2006 American epic action-adventure film directed by Mel Gibson. Set in Yucatan, Mexico, during the declining period of the Maya civilization, Apocalypto depicts the journey of a Mesoamerican tribesman who must escape human sacrifice and rescue his family after the capture and...
recorded to the HDCAM
HDCAM
HDCAM, introduced in 1997, is an High-definition video digital recording videocassette version of Digital Betacam, using an 8-bit DCT compressed 3:1:1 recording, in 1080i-compatible downsampled resolution of 1440×1080, and adding 24p and 23.976 PsF modes to later models...
tape format.
Fincher had previously worked with director of photography
Cinematographer
A cinematographer is one photographing with a motion picture camera . The title is generally equivalent to director of photography , used to designate a chief over the camera and lighting crews working on a film, responsible for achieving artistic and technical decisions related to the image...
Harris Savides
Harris Savides
Harris Savides is a contemporary American cinematographer. Notable films include Gus Van Sant's "young death" trilogy , The Game, Zodiac and American Gangster....
on Se7en
Se7en
Seven is a 1995 American thriller film, which also contains horror and neo-noir elements, directed by David Fincher and written by Andrew Kevin Walker. It was distributed by New Line Cinema and stars Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman, Gwyneth Paltrow, R...
(he shot the opening credits
Opening credits
In a motion picture, television program, or video game, the opening credits are shown at the very beginning and list the most important members of the production. They are now usually shown as text superimposed on a blank screen or static pictures, or sometimes on top of action in the show. There...
) and The Game
The Game (film)
The Game is a 1997 neo-noir psychological thriller film directed by David Fincher, starring Michael Douglas and Sean Penn, and produced by Polygram. It tells the story of an investment banker who is given a mysterious gift: participation in a game that integrates in strange ways with his life...
. Savides loved the script but realized, “there was so much exposition, just people talking on the phone or having conversations. It was difficult to imagine how it could be done in a visual way.” Fincher and Savides did not want to repeat the look of Se7en. The director's approach to Zodiac was to create a look mundane enough that audiences would accept that what they were watching was the truth. The filmmakers also did not want to glamorize the killer or tell the story through his eyes. “That would have turned the story into a first-person-shooter video game. We didn’t want to make the sort of movie that serial killers would want to own,” Fincher said.
Savides' first experience with the Viper Filmstream camera was shooting a Motorola
Motorola
Motorola, Inc. was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, which was eventually divided into two independent public companies, Motorola Mobility and Motorola Solutions on January 4, 2011, after losing $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009...
commercial with Fincher. From there, he used it on Zodiac. Fincher wanted to make sure that the camera was more inclined towards film production so that the studio would be more comfortable about using it on a project with large budget. To familiarize himself with the camera, he “did as many things ‘wrong’ as I possibly could. I went against everything I was supposed to do with the camera.” Savides felt comfortable with the camera after discovering its limitations.
Fincher and Savides used the photographs of William Eggleston
William Eggleston
William Eggleston , is an American photographer. He is widely credited with increasing recognition for color photography as a legitimate artistic medium to display in art galleries—which, until the 1970s, often tended to privilege work by photographers making black-and-white prints.- Early years...
, Stephen Shore
Stephen Shore
Stephen Shore is an American photographer known for his deadpan images of banal scenes and objects in the United States, and for his pioneering use of color in art photography.- Life and work :...
's work from the early Seventies, and actual photos from the Zodiac police files. The two men worked hard to capture the look and feel of the period as Fincher admitted, “I suppose there could have been more VW bugs
Volkswagen Beetle
The Volkswagen Type 1, widely known as the Volkswagen Beetle or Volkswagen Bug, is an economy car produced by the German auto maker Volkswagen from 1938 until 2003...
but I think what we show is a pretty good representation of the time. It is not technically perfect. There are some flaws but some are intended.” The San Francisco Chronicle was built in the old post office in the Terminal Annex Building in downtown Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
. A building on nearby Spring Street subbed for the Hall of Justice and the San Francisco Police Department. Production began on September 12, 2005. The filmmakers shot for five weeks in the San Francisco Bay Area and the rest of the time in Los Angeles, bringing the film in under budget, wrapping in February 2006. The film took 115 days to shoot.
Some of the cast was not happy with Fincher’s exacting ways and perfectionism. Some scenes required upwards of 70 takes. Gyllenhaal was frustrated by the director’s methods and commented in an interview, “You get a take, 5 takes, 10 takes. Some places, 90 takes. But there is a stopping point. There’s a point at which you go, ‘That’s what we have to work with.’ But we would reshoot things. So there came a point where I would say, well, what do I do? Where’s the risk?” Downey said, “I just decided, aside from several times I wanted to garrote
Garrote
A garrote or garrote vil is a handheld weapon, most often referring to a ligature of chain, rope, scarf, wire or fishing line used to strangle someone....
him, that I was going to give him what he wanted. I think I’m a perfect person to work for him, because I understand gulag
Gulag
The Gulag was the government agency that administered the main Soviet forced labor camp systems. While the camps housed a wide range of convicts, from petty criminals to political prisoners, large numbers were convicted by simplified procedures, such as NKVD troikas and other instruments of...
s”. Fincher responded, “If an actor is going to let the role come to them, they can’t resent the fact that I’m willing to wait as long as that takes. You know, the first day of production in San Francisco we shot 56 takes of Mark and Jake – and it’s the 56th take that’s in the movie”. Ruffalo also backed up his director’s methods when he said, “The way I see it is, you enter into someone else’s world as an actor. You can put your expectations aside and have an experience that’s new and pushes and changes you, or hold onto what you think it should be and have a stubborn, immovable journey that’s filled with disappointment and anger.”
Visual effects
Digital Domain
Digital Domain is a visual effects and animation company founded by film director James Cameron, Stan Winston and Scott Ross. It is based in Venice, Los Angeles, California...
handled the bulk of the movie's 200+ effects shots, including pools of blood and bloody fingerprints found at crime scenes. For the murder of Cecelia Shepard that took place at Lake Berryessa, blood seepage and clothing stains were added in post-production. Fincher did not want to shoot the blood with practical effects because wiping everything down after every take would take too long so the murder sequences were done with CG blood.
CG was also used to recreate the San Francisco neighborhood at Washington and Cherry Streets where cab driver Paul Stine was killed. The area had changed significantly over the years and residents didn't want the murder to be re-created in their neighborhood, so Fincher shot the six-minute sequence on a bluescreen stage. Production designer Donald Burt gave the visual effects team detailed drawings of the intersection as it was in 1969. Photographs of every possible angle of the area were shot with a high-resolution digital camera, allowing the effects crew to build computer-based geometric models of homes that were then textured with period facades. 3-D vintage police motorcycles, squad cars, a firetruck and street lights were added to the final shot.
The film's establishing shots of the Bay Area were created by Matte World Digital
Matte World Digital
Matte World Digital is a visual effects company based in Novato, California that specializes in realistic matte painting effects and digital environments for feature films, television, electronic games and IMAX large-format productions.-History:...
. The "helicopter shots" of the fireworks-laden sky over Vallejo, the San Francisco waterfront, and the cab driving through San Francisco were CG, as was the shot looking down from the tower of the Golden Gate Bridge.
A time-lapse sequence showing the building of the Transamerica Pyramid
Transamerica Pyramid
The Transamerica Pyramid is the tallest skyscraper in the San Francisco skyline and one of its most iconic. Although the building no longer houses the headquarters of the Transamerica Corporation, it is still strongly associated with the company and is depicted in the company's logo...
was a hybrid of 2D and 3D matte painting
Matte painting
A matte painting is a painted representation of a landscape, set, or distant location that allows filmmakers to create the illusion of an environment that would otherwise be too expensive or impossible to build or visit. Historically, matte painters and film technicians have used various techniques...
. The shot was initially created using reference photos of the Pyramid taken from the rooftop of Francis Ford Coppola's Sentinel Building. MWD's visual effects supervisor, Craig Barron
Craig Barron
Craig Barron is an American visual-effects supervisor who specializes in seamless matte painting effects. He is also a filmmaker, entrepreneur, and film historian who is co-founder and head of the visual effects company, Matte World Digital...
, then researched the Pyramid's original construction techniques for accuracy in the animated sequence.
The art for the Zodiac poster was also provided by Matte World Digital at Fincher's request. Barron and his crew shot digital photos of the city skyline at night and composited them with a stock photo taken from the top of the Golden Gate Bridge. Layers of fog were added for the final image.
Soundtrack
Originally, Fincher envisioned the film’s soundtrack to be composed of 40 cues of vintage music spanning the nearly three decades of the Zodiac story. With music supervisor George Drakoulias, the director searched for the right pop songs that reflected the era, including Three Dog NightThree Dog Night
Three Dog Night is an American rock band best known for their music from 1968 to 1975. During that time the band charted 21 Billboard top 40 hits in America, three of which reached Number One...
’s cover of “Easy to Be Hard” because “it’s so ingrained in my psyche as being what the summer of ’69 sounded like in northern California”. Initially, Fincher did not envision an original score for the film, but rather a tapestry of sound design, vintage songs of the period, sound bites and clips of [AM radio giant] KFRC and "Mathews Top of the Hill Daly City" (home of a prominent hi-fi dealership of the time). The director told the studio that he did not need a composer and would buy various songs instead. They agreed, but as the film developed, sound designer and longtime Fincher collaborator Ren Klyce felt there were places in some scenes that could have used music. So, he inserted music from one of his favorite soundtracks, David Shire
David Shire
David Lee Shire is an American songwriter and the composer of stage musicals, film and television scores. The soundtrack to the movie The Taking of Pelham 123 and parts of the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack such as Night on Disco Mountain, an adaptation of Modest Mussorgsky's Night on Bald...
’s score for The Conversation
The Conversation
The Conversation is a 1974 American psychological thriller film written, produced and directed by Francis Ford Coppola and starring Gene Hackman...
and All the President's Men
All the President's Men (film)
All the President's Men is a 1976 Academy Award-winning political thriller film based on the 1974 non-fiction book of the same name by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, the two journalists investigating the Watergate scandal for The Washington Post...
. Fincher was eager to work with Shire as All the President’s Men was one of his favorite films and one of the primary cinematic influences on Zodiac. He reminded Klyce of the deal that he had made with the studio.
Klyce got in touch with sound and film editor Walter Murch
Walter Murch
Walter Scott Murch is an American film editor and sound designer.-Early life:Murch was born in New York City, New York, the son of Katharine and Canadian-born Walter Tandy Murch , a painter. He went to The Collegiate School, a private preparatory school in Manhattan, from 1949 to 1961...
who worked on The Conversation and he got Klyce in touch with Shire. Fincher sent the composer a copy of the script and flew him in for a meeting and a screening in L.A. At first, Fincher only wanted 15–20 minutes of score and for it to be all based on solo piano. As Shire worked on it and incorporated textures of a Charles Ives
Charles Ives
Charles Edward Ives was an American modernist composer. He is one of the first American composers of international renown, though Ives' music was largely ignored during his life, and many of his works went unperformed for many years. Over time, Ives came to be regarded as an "American Original"...
piece called, “The Unanswered Question
The Unanswered Question
The Unanswered Question is a work by American composer Charles Ives. It was originally the first of "Two Contemplations" composed in 1906, paired with another piece called Central Park in the Dark. As with many of Ives' works, it was largely unknown until much later in his life, being first...
” and Conversation-based cues, he found that he had 37 minutes of original music. The orchestra Shire assembled consisted of musicians from the San Francisco Opera and S.F. ballet. Shire said, “There are 12 signs of the Zodiac and there is a way of using atonal and tonal music. So we used 12 tones, never repeating any of them but manipulating them”. He used specific instruments to represent the characters: the trumpet for Toschi, the solo piano for Graysmith and the dissonant strings for the Zodiac killer.
Release
An early version of Zodiac ran three hours and eight minutes. It was supposed to be released in time for Academy Award consideration but Paramount felt that the film ran too long and asked Fincher to make changes. Contractually, he had final cut and once he reached a length he felt was right, the director refused to make any further cuts. To trim down the film to two hours and forty minutes, he had to cut a two-minute blackout montage of “hit songs signaling the passage of time from Joni MitchellJoni Mitchell
Joni Mitchell, CC is a Canadian musician, singer songwriter, and painter. Mitchell began singing in small nightclubs in her native Saskatchewan and Western Canada and then busking in the streets and dives of Toronto...
to Donna Summer
Donna Summer
LaDonna Adrian Gaines , known by her stage name, Donna Summer, is an American singer/songwriter who gained prominence during the disco era of the 1970s. She has a mezzo-soprano vocal range. Summer is a five-time Grammy winner and was the first artist to have three consecutive double albums reach...
.” It was replaced with a title card that reads, “Four years later.” Another cut scene that test screening audiences did not like involved “three guys talking into a speakerphone” to get a search warrant as Toschi and Armstrong talk to SFPD Capt. Marty Lee (Dermot Mulroney
Dermot Mulroney
-Early life:Mulroney was born in Alexandria, Virginia, the son of Ellen, a housewife and amateur actress originally from Manchester, Iowa, and Michael Mulroney, a law professor at Villanova University School of Law, originally from Elkader, Iowa. He has a sister, Moira, and three brothers, Conor,...
) about their case against suspect Arthur Leigh Allen. Fincher said that this scene would probably be put back on the DVD.
To promote Zodiac, Paramount posted on light-poles in major cities original sketches of the actual Zodiac killer with the words, "In theaters March 2nd," at the bottom. The film was screened in competition at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival
2007 Cannes Film Festival
The 2007 Cannes Film Festival, the sixtieth, ran from 16 to 27 May 2007. Wong Kar-wai's My Blueberry Nights opened the festival, and Denys Arcand's The Age of Ignorance closed...
on May 17, 2007 with Fincher and Gyllenhaal participating in a press conference afterwards. The director's cut
Director's cut
A director's cut is a specially edited version of a film, and less often TV series, music video, commercials, comic book or video games, that is supposed to represent the director's own approved edit...
of Zodiac was given a rare screening at the Walter Reade
Walter Reade
Walter Reade Sr was the man behind a chain of theatres which grew from a single theatre in Asbury Park, New Jersey to a chain of forty theatres and drive-ins in New Jersey, New York and neighboring states that lasted into the mid seventies. Known as the “Showman of The Shore,” his name was...
Theater in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
on November 19, 2007 with Fincher being interviewed by film critic Kent Jones afterwards.
Home media
The DVDDVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
for Zodiac was released on July 24, 2007 and is available widescreen or fullscreen, presented in anamorphic widescreen, and an English Dolby Digital
Dolby Digital
Dolby Digital is the name for audio compression technologies developed by Dolby Laboratories. It was originally called Dolby Stereo Digital until 1994. Except for Dolby TrueHD, the audio compression is lossy. The first use of Dolby Digital was to provide digital sound in cinemas from 35mm film prints...
5.1 Surround track. There are no extra materials included.
According to David Prior, producer of the subsequent two-disc special edition, the initial bare bones edition "was only reluctantly agreed to by Fincher because I needed more time on the bonus material. The studio was locked into their release date, so Fincher allowed that version to be released first. It had nothing to do with Fincher 'double dipping his own movie before it even makes it to stores' and everything to do with buying more time for the special edition". He stated that the theatrical cut would only be available on the single-disc edition. Prior elaborated further: "Nobody wants fans feeling like they're being taken advantage of, and I know that double-dipping creates that impression. That's why it was so important to me that consumers be told there was another version coming. In this case it really was a rock-and-a-hard place situation, and delaying the second release was done strictly for the benefit of the final product... But this is a very ambitious project, easily the most far-reaching I've ever worked on, and owing largely to studio snafus that I can't really elaborate on, I didn't have enough time to do it properly. Thus Fincher bought me the extra time by agreeing to a staggered release, which I'm very grateful for". In its first week, rentals for the DVD earned $6.7 million.
The two-disc director's cut
Director's cut
A director's cut is a specially edited version of a film, and less often TV series, music video, commercials, comic book or video games, that is supposed to represent the director's own approved edit...
DVD and HD DVD
HD DVD
HD DVD is a discontinued high-density optical disc format for storing data and high-definition video.Supported principally by Toshiba, HD DVD was envisioned to be the successor to the standard DVD format...
were released on January 8, 2008, with its UK release on Blu-ray
Blu-ray Disc
Blu-ray Disc is an optical disc storage medium designed to supersede the DVD format. The plastic disc is 120 mm in diameter and 1.2 mm thick, the same size as DVDs and CDs. Blu-ray Discs contain 25 GB per layer, with dual layer discs being the norm for feature-length video discs...
and DVD announced for September 29, 2008. Disc 1 features, in addition to a longer cut of the film, an audio commentary
Audio commentary
On disc-based video formats, an audio commentary is an additional audio track consisting of a lecture or comments by one or more speakers, that plays in real time with video...
by Fincher and a second by Gyllenhaal, Downey, Fischer, Vanderbilt, and Ellroy. Disc 2 includes a trailer, a "Zodiac Deciphered" documentary, a "Visual Effects of Zodiac" featurette, previsualization split-screen comparisons for the Blue Rock Springs, Lake Berryessa, and San Francisco murder sequences, a "This is the Zodiac Speaking" featurette, and a "His Name Was Arthur Leigh Allen" featurette. Other extras apparently originally intended for the set, including TV spots and featurettes on "Digital Workflow", "Linguistic Analysis", "Jeopardy Surface: Geographic Profiling" (Dr. Kim Rossmo
Rossmo's formula
Rossmo's formula is a geographic profiling formula to predict where a serial criminal lives. The formula was developed by criminologist Kim Rossmo.-Formula:...
's geographic profile
Geographic profiling
Geographic profiling is a criminal investigative methodology that analyzes the locations of a connected series of crimes to determine the most probable area of offender residence. By incorporating both qualitative and quantitative methods, it assists in understanding spatial behaviour of an...
of the Zodiac), and "The Psychology of Aggression: Behavioral Profiling" (Special Agent Sharon Pagaling-Hagan's behavioral profile of the Zodiac) were omitted. However, the latter three featurettes were made available on the film's website. This new version runs five minutes longer than the theatrical cut. For Oscar contention, Paramount distributed the Director's Cut DVD to the Producers Guild of America
Producers Guild of America
Producers Guild of America is a trade organization representing television producers, film producers and New Media producers in the United States. The PGA's membership includes over 4,700 members of the producing establishment worldwide...
, the Writers Guild of America
Writers Guild of America
The Writers Guild of America is a generic term referring to the joint efforts of two different US labor unions:* The Writers Guild of America, East , representing TV and film writers East of the Mississippi....
and the Screen Actors Guild
Screen Actors Guild
The Screen Actors Guild is an American labor union representing over 200,000 film and television principal performers and background performers worldwide...
, instead of the official release version. This was the first time that the studio had done this.
Box office
Opening in 2,362 theaters on March 2, 2007, the film grossed USD $13.3 million in its opening weekend, placing second and posting a decent per-theater average of $5,671. The film was easily outgrossed by fellow opener Wild HogsWild Hogs
Wild Hogs is a 2007 comedy film directed by Walt Becker and starring Tim Allen, John Travolta, Martin Lawrence, and William H. Macy. It was released nationwide in the United States and Canada on March 2, 2007, though preview film screenings were held in select areas on February 24, 2007.-Plot:Doug...
and saw a decline of over 50% in its second weekend, losing out to the record-breaking 300
300 (film)
300 is a 2007 American fantasy action film based on the 1998 comic series of the same name by Frank Miller. It is a fictionalized retelling of the Battle of Thermopylae. The film was directed by Zack Snyder, while Miller served as executive producer and consultant...
. It grossed $33 million in North America and $51 million in the rest of the world, bringing its current total to $84 million, above its estimated $75 million production budget. In an interview with Sight & Sound
Sight & Sound
Sight & Sound is a British monthly film magazine published by the British Film Institute .Sight & Sound was first published in 1932 and in 1934 management of the magazine was handed to the nascent BFI, which still publishes the magazine today...
magazine, Fincher addressed the film's disaster at the North American box office: "Even with the box office being what it is, I still think there's an audience out there for this movie. Everyone has a different idea about marketing, but my philosophy is that if you market a movie to 16-year-old boys and don't deliver Saw
Saw (film)
Saw is a 2004 American independent horror film directed by James Wan. The screenplay, written by Leigh Whannell, is based on a story by Wan and Whannell. The film stars Cary Elwes, Danny Glover, Monica Potter, Michael Emerson, Ken Leung, Whannell and Tobin Bell...
or Se7en
Seven (film)
Seven is a 1995 American thriller film, which also contains horror and neo-noir elements, directed by David Fincher and written by Andrew Kevin Walker. It was distributed by New Line Cinema and stars Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman, Gwyneth Paltrow, R...
, they're going to be the most vociferous ones coming out of the screening saying 'This movie sucks.' And you're saying goodbye to the audience who would get it because they're going to look at the ads and say, 'I don't want to see some slasher movie
Slasher film
A slasher film is a type of horror film typically involving a psychopathic killer stalking and killing a sequence of victims in a graphically violent manner, often with a cutting tool such as a knife or axe...
.'"
Reviews
Overall, reviews of the film were highly positive. Entertainment WeeklyEntertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
critic Owen Gleiberman
Owen Gleiberman
Owen Gleiberman is an American film critic for Entertainment Weekly, a position he has held since the magazine's launch in 1990. From 1981–89, he worked at the Boston Phoenix....
awarded the film an "A" grade, hailing the film as a "procedural thriller for the information age
Information Age
The Information Age, also commonly known as the Computer Age or Digital Age, is an idea that the current age will be characterized by the ability of individuals to transfer information freely, and to have instant access to knowledge that would have been difficult or impossible to find previously...
" that "spins your head in a new way, luring you into a vortex and then deeper still." Nathan Lee in his review for the Village Voice wrote, "Yet it's his very lack of pretense, coupled with a determination to get the facts down with maximum economy and objectivity, that gives Zodiac its hard, bright integrity. As a crime saga, newspaper drama, and period piece, it works just fine. As an allegory of life in the information age, it blew my mind." Todd McCarthy's review in Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
praised the film's "almost unerringly accurate evocation of the workaday San Francisco of 35–40 years ago. Forget the distorted emphasis on hippies and flower-power that many such films indulge in; this is the city as it was experienced by most people who lived and worked there." David Ansen
David Ansen
David Ansen is a reviewer and senior editor for Newsweek, where he has been reviewing movies since 1977. He came to Newsweek after several years as the chief film critic at Boston's The Real Paper...
, in his review for Newsweek
Newsweek
Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...
magazine, wrote, "Zodiac is meticulously crafted – Harris Savides's state-of-the-art digital cinematography has a richness indistinguishable from film – and it runs almost two hours and 40 minutes. Still, the movie holds you in its grip from start to finish. Fincher boldly (and some may think perversely) withholds the emotional and forensic payoff we're conditioned to expect from a big studio movie."
Some critics, however, were displeased with the film's long running time and lack of action scenes. "The film gets mired in the inevitable red tape of police investigations," wrote Bob Longino of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, who also felt that the film "stumbles to a rather unfulfilling conclusion" and "seems to last as long as the Oscars
Academy Awards
An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...
." Andrew Sarris
Andrew Sarris
Andrew Sarris is an American film critic and a leading proponent of the auteur theory of criticism.-Career:Sarris is generally credited with popularizing the auteur theory in the U.S...
of the New York Observer
New York Observer
The New York Observer is a weekly newspaper first published in New York City on September 22, 1987, by Arthur L. Carter, a very successful former investment banker with publishing interests. The Observer focuses on the city's culture, real estate, the media, politics and the entertainment and...
felt that "Mr. Fincher’s flair for casting is the major asset of his curiously attenuated return to the serial-killer genre. I keep saying 'curiously' with regard to Mr. Fincher, because I can’t really figure out what he is up to in Zodiac – with its two-hour-and-37-minute running time for what struck me as a shaggy-dog narrative." Christy Lemire wrote in the San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle
thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...
that "Jake Gyllenhaal is both the central figure and the weakest link... But he's never fleshed out sufficiently to make you believe that he'd sacrifice his safety and that of his family to find the truth. We are told repeatedly that the former Eagle Scout is just a genuinely good guy, but that's not enough."
In the United Kingdom, Time Out magazine wrote, "Zodiac isn’t a puzzle film in quite that way; instead its subject is the compulsion to solve puzzles, and its coup is the creeping recognition, quite contrary to the flow of crime cinema, of how fruitless that compulsion can be." Peter Bradshaw in his review for The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
commended the film for its "sheer cinematic virility," and gave it four stars out of five. In his review for Empire
Empire (magazine)
Empire is a British film magazine published monthly by Bauer Consumer Media. From the first issue in July 1989, the magazine was edited by Barry McIlheney and published by Emap. Bauer purchased Emap Consumer Media in early 2008...
magazine, Kim Newman
Kim Newman
Kim Newman is an English journalist, film critic, and fiction writer. Recurring interests visible in his work include film history and horror fiction—both of which he attributes to seeing Tod Browning's Dracula at the age of eleven—and alternate fictional versions of history...
gave the film four out of five stars and wrote, "You’ll need patience with the film’s approach, which follows its main characters by poring over details, and be prepared to put up with a couple of rote family arguments and weary cop conversations, but this gripping character study becomes more agonisingly suspenseful as it gets closer to an answer that can’t be confirmed." Graham Fuller in Sight and Sound magazine wrote, "the tone is pleasingly flat and mundane, evoking the demoralising grind of police work in a pre-feminist, pre-technological era. As such, Zodiac is considerably more adult than both Se7en, which salivates over the macabre cat-and-mouse game it plays with the audience, and the macho brinkmanship of Fight Club
Fight Club (film)
Fight Club is a 1999 American film based on the 1996 novel of the same name by Chuck Palahniuk. The film was directed by David Fincher and stars Edward Norton, Brad Pitt and Helena Bonham Carter. Norton plays the unnamed protagonist, an "everyman" who is discontented with his white-collar job...
." Not all British critics liked the film. David Thompson in the Guardian felt that in relation to the rest of Fincher's career, Zodiac was "the worst yet, a terrible disappointment in which an ingenious and deserving all-American serial killer nearly gets lost in the meandering treatment of cops and journalists obsessed with the case."
In France, Le Monde
Le Monde
Le Monde is a French daily evening newspaper owned by La Vie-Le Monde Group and edited in Paris. It is one of two French newspapers of record, and has generally been well respected since its first edition under founder Hubert Beuve-Méry on 19 December 1944...
newspaper praised Fincher for having "obtained a maturity that impresses by his mastery of form," while Libération
Libération
Libération is a French daily newspaper founded in Paris by Jean-Paul Sartre and Serge July in 1973 in the wake of the protest movements of May 1968. Originally a leftist newspaper, it has undergone a number of shifts during the 1980s and 1990s...
described the film as "a thriller of elegance magnificently photographed by the great Harry Savides." However, Le Figaro
Le Figaro
Le Figaro is a French daily newspaper founded in 1826 and published in Paris. It is one of three French newspapers of record, with Le Monde and Libération, and is the oldest newspaper in France. It is also the second-largest national newspaper in France after Le Parisien and before Le Monde, but...
wrote, "No audacity, no invention, nothing but a plot which intrigues without captivating, disturbs without terrifying, interests without exciting."
Zodiac currently has a rating of 89% on Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
(81% for their "Cream of the Crop" designation) dubbing it "Certified Fresh", and a 78 metascore at Metacritic
Metacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
.
Top ten lists
Only two 2007 movies appeared on more critics' top ten lists than Zodiac (No Country for Old MenNo Country for Old Men (film)
No Country for Old Men is a 2007 American crime thriller directed by Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, and starring Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, and Josh Brolin. The film was adapted from the Cormac McCarthy novel of the same name...
and There Will Be Blood
There Will Be Blood
There Will Be Blood is a 2007 drama film written, co-produced, and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. The film is based on Upton Sinclair's 1927 novel Oil!. It tells the story of a silver miner-turned-oilman on a ruthless quest for wealth during Southern California's oil boom of the late 19th and...
). Some of the notable top-ten list appearances are:
- 1st — Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out New York
- 1st — Desson Thomson, The Washington PostThe Washington PostThe Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
- 2nd — Manohla Dargis, The New York TimesThe New York TimesThe New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
- 2nd — Mike Russell, The OregonianThe OregonianThe Oregonian is the major daily newspaper in Portland, Oregon, owned by Advance Publications. It is the oldest continuously published newspaper on the U.S. west coast, founded as a weekly by Thomas J. Dryer on December 4, 1850...
- 2nd — Nathan Lee, The Village VoiceThe Village VoiceThe Village Voice is a free weekly newspaper and news and features website in New York City that features investigative articles, analysis of current affairs and culture, arts and music coverage, and events listings for New York City...
- 2nd — Wesley Morris, The Boston GlobeThe Boston GlobeThe Boston Globe is an American daily newspaper based in Boston, Massachusetts. The Boston Globe has been owned by The New York Times Company since 1993...
- 3rd — Nathan Rabin, The A.V. ClubThe A.V. ClubThe A.V. Club is an entertainment newspaper and website published by The Onion. Its features include reviews of new films, music, television, books, games and DVDs, as well as interviews and other regular offerings examining both new and classic media and other elements of pop culture. Unlike its...
- 3rd — Scott Tobias, The A.V. Club
- 3rd — Film CommentFilm CommentFilm Comment is an arts and culture magazine published by the Film Society of Lincoln Center, of which it is the official publication. Film Comment features critical reviews and in-depth analysis of mainstream, art-house, and avant-garde filmmaking from around the world...
- 3rd — Sight & SoundSight & SoundSight & Sound is a British monthly film magazine published by the British Film Institute .Sight & Sound was first published in 1932 and in 1934 management of the magazine was handed to the nascent BFI, which still publishes the magazine today...
- 4th — Scott Foundas, LA WeeklyLA WeeklyLA Weekly is a free weekly tabloid-sized "alternative weekly" in Los Angeles, California. It was founded in 1978 by Editor/Publisher Jay Levin and a board of directors that included actor-producer Michael Douglas...
- 5th — Philip Martin, Arkansas Democrat-GazetteArkansas Democrat-GazetteThe Arkansas Democrat-Gazette is the newspaper of record in the U.S. state of Arkansas, printed in Little Rock with a northwest edition published in Lowell...
- 6th — EmpireEmpire (magazine)Empire is a British film magazine published monthly by Bauer Consumer Media. From the first issue in July 1989, the magazine was edited by Barry McIlheney and published by Emap. Bauer purchased Emap Consumer Media in early 2008...
- 6th — Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment WeeklyEntertainment WeeklyEntertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
- 6th — Lou Lumenick, New York PostNew York PostThe New York Post is the 13th-oldest newspaper published in the United States and is generally acknowledged as the oldest to have been published continuously as a daily, although – as is the case with most other papers – its publication has been periodically interrupted by labor actions...
- 7th — Richard Roeper, At the Movies with Ebert & Roeper
- 7th — Glenn Kenny, PremierePremiere (magazine)Premiere was an American and New York City-based film magazine published by Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S., published between the years 1987 and 2007. The original version of the magazine, Première , was started in France in 1976 and is still being published there.-History:The magazine originally...
- 7th — Keith Phipps, The A.V. Club
- 9th — Marc Mohan, The Oregonian
- 9th — Noel Murray, The A.V. Club
- 9th — Ty Burr, The Boston Globe
- 10th — Claudia Puig, USA TodayUSA TodayUSA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...
- 10th — Liam Lacey and Rick Groen, The Globe and MailThe Globe and MailThe Globe and Mail is a nationally distributed Canadian newspaper, based in Toronto and printed in six cities across the country. With a weekly readership of approximately 1 million, it is Canada's largest-circulation national newspaper and second-largest daily newspaper after the Toronto Star...
- 10th — Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly
- 10th — Rene Rodriguez, The Miami HeraldThe Miami HeraldThe Miami Herald is a daily newspaper owned by The McClatchy Company headquartered on Biscayne Bay in the Omni district of Downtown Miami, Florida, United States...
Awards
James Vanderbilt was nominated for Adapted Screenplay by the Writers Guild of AmericaWriters Guild of America
The Writers Guild of America is a generic term referring to the joint efforts of two different US labor unions:* The Writers Guild of America, East , representing TV and film writers East of the Mississippi....
, Chicago Film Critics Association, and the Satellite Awards.
Further reading
- Film & Video: VFX for Zodiac
- Premiere magazine article
- San Francisco Chronicle set visit
- Cineaste review
- Building Suspense Along the Trail of an Invisible Man - an analysis of a scene from the film