Spacey, Fincher Team For "House of Cards"

Spacey, Fincher Team For "House of Cards"

Movie News

By our guest blogger, Matt Jussim

Although I think he got robbed for Best Director for "The Social Network," David Fincher hasn't let the loss slow him down. He's hard at work on his adaptation of "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" and he also is directing the pilot of the series "House of Cards," which just received a new starring cast member.

According to Deadline, Kevin Spacey has signed on to take the lead role in the Fincher-directed pilot of "House of Cards" for Media Rights Capital. The two have previously worked together on the 1995 film "Se7en."

The one-hour drama is based on Michael Dobbs' original novel and the famed Emmy-winning 1990 UK mini-series, which starred Ian Richardson. The premise fuses black political comedy with elements from "Macbeth" and "Richard III," and like the original series, it will follow political story lines.

In the original series, the story was set at the end of Margaret Thatcher's tenure as prime minister and follows scheming British politician Francis Urquhart who has his eye on the top job and manipulates agendas to get his way. Fincher's adaptation will change the setting to the U.S. but maintain focus on political ambition and blackmail.

Fincher doesn’t do TV all that often, so you know he must really dig the premise, which should fit very well in a US location. For as much political drama as there is in England, the United States has just as much to work with, and arguably even more so that it's Atlantic Ocean counterpart.

The teaming up of Fincher and Spacey again is sort of too good to be true, as is Finer working on a pilot at all. Spacey is one of this generations best actors and he has showed of his political drama chops numerous times through his career including in HBO's "Recount" and more recently in "Casino Jack."

Beau Willimon ("The Ides of March") adapted the script and the pilot is currently being shopped to the networks.