Mindhunter season 3 is off the table, David Fincher confirms

Mindhunter
(Image credit: Netflix)

Mindhunter season 3 isn't happening, as executive producer and director David Fincher has confirmed.

Fincher delivered the sad, but not unexpected, news in an interview with Vulture about his upcoming Netflix film The Mank. He mentioned that he decided to make The Mank after exhausting years spent making the first two seasons of Mindhunter.

"We had done the first season of Mindhunter without a showrunner, with me pinch-hitting on a week-by-week basis," Fincher said. "We started getting scripts for the second season, and I ended up looking at what was written and deciding I didn’t like any of it. So we tossed it and started over. I brought in Courtenay Miles, an AD I’d worked with who wanted to write, and she ended up co-showrunning Mindhunter. But it’s a 90-hour work week. It absorbs everything in your life. When I got done, I was pretty exhausted, and I said, 'I don’t know if I have it in me right now to break season three.'”

Rather than fighting for another season, Fincher said the Netflix executives just asked him what he'd rather make instead, and thus work on The Mank began. On top of being worn the hell out by making Mindhunter, Fincher admitted that another season probably wouldn't make sense for Netflix on a financial level - which goes double since the actors were released from their contracts.

"Listen, for the viewership that it had, it was an expensive show. We talked about 'Finish Mank and then see how you feel,' but I honestly don’t think we’re going to be able to do it for less than I did season two. And on some level, you have to be realistic about dollars having to equal eyeballs."

Fortunately, there's still much more to add to your watchlist: check out our rundown of the best shows on Netflix and the best movies on Netflix.

Connor Sheridan

I got a BA in journalism from Central Michigan University - though the best education I received there was from CM Life, its student-run newspaper. Long before that, I started pursuing my degree in video games by bugging my older brother to let me play Zelda on the Super Nintendo. I've previously been a news intern for GameSpot, a news writer for CVG, and now I'm a staff writer here at GamesRadar.