Mindhunter season 3 has yet to receive an official greenlight from Netflix, but even if the streaming platform were ready to dole out a renewal, the show’s creator is currently too busy to jump back into the world of serial killers. A new report says that the third season is on hold until David Fincher, who effectively serves as the showrunner for the crime drama, wraps production his next movie. Get details about that film and Fincher’s plans for the future of Mindhunter below.



The Hollywood Reporter recently published a profile of Mindhunter star Jonathan Groff, who also voices Kristoff in Disney’s Frozen movies. (Talk about whiplash!) In that piece, the trade reports that “Talk of a third season of Mindhunter is on hold while Fincher focuses on his next feature.” There were almost two years between the first and second seasons debuting, so it’s not surprising to hear that a similar (or even longer) break may happen this time – assuming the show is renewed at all, of course. Netflix seems to have become more judicious about handing out renewals in recent years, and many of its shows only last three or four seasons before the plug is pulled. But Fincher seems convinced that it will last at least five seasons, because he told Mindhunter star Holt McCallany “Listen, are you ready to do this for five seasons? Because even if I fuck it up, it’s gonna go five seasons, and I don’t intend to fuck it up.”

It’s unclear if Fincher actually received a handshake commitment for five seasons from Netflix or if he was just being overconfident, but if the streamer were to make a deal like that with anyone, it would probably be David Fincher, the filmmaker who put their original content on the map by directing the first two episodes of House of Cards.

But Mindhunter season 3 will have to wait on Fincher’s new movie, Mank, which was written by Fincher’s late father. It’s a biopic of Citizen Kane screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz, and it has Gary Oldman on board to play the title character along with Tom Burke (The Souvenir) as Orson Welles, Amanda Seyfried (First Reformed) as Marion Davies, Lily Collins (Baby Driver) as Mankiewicz’s secretary, Tuppence Middelton (Sense8) as Mankiewicz’s wife Sara, and Tom Pelphrey as Mankiewicz’s brother Joseph.

Meanwhile, Parasite and Memories of Murder director Bong Joon-ho recently expressed interest in directing an episode of Mindhunter, so maybe the timing between seasons could result in that actually happening. (Hey, a guy can dream!)