Mindhunter episode director Andrew Dominik reveals apparently-scrapped plans for season 3. Acclaimed filmmaker David Fincher unleashed Mindhunter season 1 on Netflix in 2017. The brooding and meticulously-detailed show about the birth of FBI profiling soon proved a hit with critics and audiences, leading to the arrival of season 2 in 2019.
Of course the FBI profilers at the center of Mindhunter, as fascinatingly-sketched as they may be, are not the show’s true main attraction. The real appeal of Netflix’s series instead is in its depictions of the various real-life serial killers whose prison interviews form the basis of the profilers' research. Over two seasons, Mindhunter chillingly brought to life such notorious figures as Charles Manson, David Berkowitz, Wayne Williams, Edward Kemper and Richard Speck. The show also delved into the crimes of "BTK Killer" Dennis Rader, presumably setting up a future season focused on the FBI’s efforts to nab the notorious murderer. Unfortunately Mindhunter season 3 looks like a very long-shot to ever happen, given Fincher’s reveal that the show was put on indefinite hold due to budgetary issues.
Now fans are finally getting some indication of what territory Mindhunter season 3 would have covered had it ever come to fruition. And it seems the show was about to take a very interesting turn indeed. Speaking to Collider, episode director Dominik said that a third season of Mindhunter would have seen the show’s FBI profilers taking the next logical step in their story by sharing their knowledge with some famous Hollywood filmmakers:
"What they were going to do with Season 3 was they were going to go [to] Hollywood. So one of them was going to be hooking up with Jonathan Demme and the other one was going to be hooking up with Michael Mann. And it was all going to be about profiling making it into the sort of zeitgeist, the public consciousness. It would've been... That was the season everyone was really waiting for to do, with when they sort of get out of the basement and start."
Of course the door has not been definitively slammed on Mindhunter season 3 ever happening. Fincher’s own comments have made it seem possible that more Mindhunter could still come to pass, though he’s made it clear that it’s highly unlikely Netflix would sign off on the budget needed to bring his ambitious plans to life. For his part, Mindhunter star Jonathan Groff recently made cryptic remarks when asked if he might ever return to the role of potentially-psychopathic profiler Holden Ford.
It was of course already sad for fans to know that Mindhunter season 3 is unlikely to ever happen. But Dominik's description of plans for a third season, including depictions of famous directors like Jonathan Demme and Michael Mann, only make the show's apparent cancellation that much more of a stinging development. Obviously Demme and Mann were both pivotal figures in the development of Hollywood serial killer lore, the former having directed Silence of the Lambs and the latter its Thomas Harris-based predecessor Manhunter (both of which feature made-up murderer Hannibal Lecter being interviewed Mindhunter-style during the course of FBI investigations). Seeing Mindhunter’s fictionalized FBI profilers Holden Ford and Bill Tench lending their expertise to the creation of some of Hollywood history’s most well-known serial killer films would have been very meta indeed, and likely incredibly entertaining.
Source: Collider
