20 Things You Didn't Know About Zodiac

As much as David Fincher is undeniably one of the most popular and acclaimed filmmakers working today, there's one movie which is too often ignored when discussing his greatest works.

As masterfully crafted as Se7en, Fight Club, and The Social Network undeniably are, the very best of Fincher's grim thrillers is actually his 2007 film Zodiac.

An anxious, slow-moving cinematic document of the unsuccessful race to catch the elusive Zodiac Killer, Zodiac is as meticulous and ingeniously conceived as crime thrillers come.

But despite critical acclaim the film wasn't a box office success and bafflingly left Oscar season empty-handed.

However in recent years, thanks to enjoying lengthy runs on various streaming services, Zodiac is slowly but surely earning the esteem it's always deserved.

And while any Fincher production is filled with colourful stories about the director's unconventional filmmaking methods, you'd be forgiven for knowing little about Zodiac's creation given its relatively low profile compared to his more commercially successful projects.

These are the anecdotes and stories which best define the controlled chaos which led to the most haunting slice of cinematic true crime in the 21st century so far...

Given that the Zodiac Killer hasn't been caught, it was important for the film to keep his identity ambiguous, and so Fincher ultimately decided to cast three different actors to play him during his various appearances, with each actor having their faces obscured at all times.

This was a simple but effective trick to ensure the audience remained as mystified by Zodiac as the real investigators were at the time, unable to assign a concrete identity to the killer.

Had Fincher instead cast an even vaguely familiar character actor as Zodiac, much of that chilly slipperiness would've been lost. Instead, without a discernible face for audiences to fix their eyes on, he remains an eerily shadowy figure.