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Rumor: Matt Damon in David Fincher's Torso Adaptation?

by Alex Billington
September 5, 2008
Source: Cleveland.com

Whenever some film or filmmaker ends up in the news a lot, more related stories seem to work their way out of the woodwork. Today we've got another tidbit on a proposed upcoming David Fincher project. Although I know we're supposed to be entirely focused on The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, this is about another one of his upcoming projects - an adaptation of the true crime graphic novel Torso. We seem to have missed the original announcement for this project, but the news today comes from Cleveland.com (via our friends at RopeofSilicon), the site for the city where the film takes place as well as where they might shoot. The article mentions that Matt Damon will play Cleveland's safety director Eliot Ness, who gets wrapped up in the killings, as well as details on Ohio's lack of tax breaks for filmmakers.

Starting from the top, Torso is a graphic novel first published in 2001 by Image Comics that tells the story of the "torso" murders, in which at least 13 people were killed between 1934 and 1938. Fresh off of the Al Capone case in Chicago, Eliot Ness moves to Cleveland to help clean up the city. But when dismembered body parts start washing up near Lake Erie Sound, Ness starts on another lengthy investigation. And as far as we know, the killings were never solved. The film is apparently a big-budget adaptation in development at Paramount with Fincher directing and now Damon starring. Given this is the first time anyone has heard these details, I'm a bit skeptical on their validity, especially with Paramount and Fincher fighting.

"It all comes down to what's the best place to get our movie shot for the least money," producer Bill Mechanic told Cleveland.com. "We want to shoot the entire movie, the interior and exterior shots, in Cleveland because that's where the action takes place and so we wouldn't have to relocate the crew." Fincher loves to shoot on location, as he did for Zodiac in San Francisco, and I think it would be integral for Torso to shoot in Cleveland. The article mentions that they will most likely shoot exteriors in Cleveland to maintain accuracy, but interiors could be shot in another state. Considering Zodiac turned out so good, I'm actually anxious to see Fincher take on more dark stories about killers. Call me sadistic, but Fincher really does do a fantastic job bringing them to life on the big screen. Does Torso sound like another Zodiac?

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