20 Things You Didn't Know About Shutter Island

18. David Fincher & Wolfgang Petersen Were Originally Considered To Direct

Before Scorsese came aboard, David Fincher was originally considered to direct with Brad Pitt in the lead role, and given the filmmaker's aptitude for spinning pulp into fine-tuned genre mastery, it's easy to imagine how brilliantly he could've adapted the source material.

Long before Fincher, however, Paramount also considered giving Dennis Lehane's novel a more action-orientated treatment, and so toyed with handing the directing gig to Wolfgang Petersen (Das Boot, Air Force One), a well-versed filmmaker in the action genre.

Fincher was certainly a more inspired pick than Petersen, who clearly would've been making a very different movie, but it's tough to feel bad about the esteemed director we ended up with either way.