Zodiac (film)

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Zodiac

Theatrical release poster

Directed by

Produced by

Screenplay
by
Based on

David Fincher

Mike Medavoy

Arnold W. Messer

Bradley J. Fischer

James Vanderbilt

Cen Chaffin

James Vanderbilt
Zodiac

by Robert Graysmith

Starring

Music by
Cinematogr
aphy
Edited by
Production
company

Jake Gyllenhaal

Mark Ruffalo

Robert Downey Jr.

Anthony Edwards

Brian Cox

Elias Koteas

Donal Logue

John Carroll Lynch

Dermot Mulroney

Chlo Sevigny

David Shire
Harris Savides
Angus Wall
Phoenix Pictures

Distributed
by

Paramount Pictures
States)

Warner Bros. Pictures

(International)

Release
dates
Running

(United

March 2, 2007

158 minutes

time
Country
Language
Budget
Box office

United States
English
$65 million[1]
$84.8 million[1]

Zodiac is a 2007 American mystery-thriller film directed by David Fincher. The screenplay by
James Vanderbilt is based on the 1986 non-fiction book of the same name by Robert Graysmith.
The film stars Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo, and Robert Downey, Jr., with Anthony Edwards,
Brian Cox, Elias Koteas, Donal Logue, John Carroll Lynch, Dermot Mulroney and Chlo
Sevigny in supporting roles.
Zodiac tells the story of the manhunt for a notorious serial killer who called himself the "Zodiac"
and killed in and around the San Francisco Bay Area during the late 1960s and early 1970s,
leaving several victims in his wake and taunting police with letters, blood stained clothing, and
ciphers mailed to newspapers. The cases remain one of Northern California's most infamous
unsolved crimes.
Fincher, Vanderbilt and producer Bradley J. Fischer spent 18 months conducting their own
investigation and research into the Zodiac murders. Fincher employed the digital Thomson Viper
Filmstream camera to photograph the film. However, Zodiac was not shot entirely digitally;
traditional high-speed film cameras were used for slow-motion murder sequences.
Reviews for Zodiac were very positive, lauding the film's writing, directing, acting and historical
authenticity. The film grossed over $84 million worldwide against a production budget of $65
million.
Contents

1 Plot

2 Cast

3 Production
o

3.1 Development

3.2 Casting

3.3 Principal photography

3.4 Visual effects

3.5 Soundtrack

4 Release
o

4.1 Home media

5 Reception
o

5.1 Box office

5.2 Critical response

5.2.1 Top ten lists

5.3 Accolades

6 See also

7 References

8 Further reading

9 External links

Plot

On July 4, 1969, an unknown man attacks Darlene Ferrin and Mike Mageau with a handgun, at a
lovers' lane in Vallejo, California. Mageau survives; Ferrin dies.
One month later, the San Francisco Chronicle receives encrypted letters written by the killer
calling himself the "Zodiac" and taunting the police. Political cartoonist Robert Graysmith is not
taken seriously by crime reporter Paul Avery or the editors and is excluded from the initial details
about the killings despite his interest in the case. When the newspaper publishes the letters, a
married couple is able to decipher one. At a local bar, Avery initially makes fun of Graysmith
before they discuss the coded letters. Graysmith interprets the letter, which Avery finds helpful,
and Avery begins sharing information. The Zodiac killer attacks law student Bryan Hartnell and
Cecelia Shepard at Lake Berryessa in Napa County on September 27, 1969. Shepard dies two
days later, and Hartnell survives. One of Graysmith's insights about the letters is that the Zodiac's
reference to man as "the most dangerous animal of them all" is a reference to the story and film
The Most Dangerous Game (which features General Zaroff as a man who hunts live human
prey). The fact that both Zaroff's surname and the name "Zodiac" start with a "Z" also seems
significant.

Two weeks later, San Francisco taxicab driver Paul Stine is shot and killed in the city's Presidio
Heights district immediately after dropping the killer off. The Zodiac killer mails pieces of
Stine's blood stained shirt to the Chronicle, along with a taunting letter. San Francisco police
detectives Dave Toschi and his partner Bill Armstrong are assigned to the Stine case, and work
closely with Vallejo's Jack Mulanax and Captain Ken Narlow in Napa. The killer, or someone
posing as him, continues to toy with authorities by sending more letters and speaks on the phone
with lawyer Melvin Belli when he makes an appearance on a television talk show. Avery and
Graysmith form an alliance, delving deeper into the case as time permits.
In 1971, Detectives Toschi, Armstrong, and Mulanax question Arthur Leigh Allen, a suspect in
the Vallejo case. Allen behaves suspiciously during the interview. They ask to see his watch and
notice that he wears a Zodiac brand wristwatch which has the same logo used by the killer.
However, a handwriting expert insists that Allen did not write the Zodiac letters, even though
Allen is said to be ambidextrous. Avery receives a letter threatening his life; becoming
increasingly paranoid, he turns to drugs and alcohol. At one point, he shares information with the
Riverside Police Department, angering both Toschi and Armstrong. The case's notoriety weighs
on Toschi, who is bothered when Graysmith shows up at the theater where Toschi is watching a
Hollywood film, Dirty Harry, loosely based on the Zodiac case, with his wife.
In 1978, Avery leaves the Chronicle, and moves to the Sacramento Bee. Graysmith persistently
contacts Toschi about the Zodiac murders, and eventually impresses the veteran detective with
his knowledge of the case. While Toschi cannot directly give Graysmith access to the evidence,
he provides contact names of other police departments in other counties where Zodiac murders
occurred. Armstrong transfers from the San Francisco Police homicide division, and Toschi is
demoted for supposedly forging a Zodiac letter. Graysmith continues his own investigation,
which is profiled in the Chronicle, and he allows himself to be interviewed on television about
his book-in-progress concerning the case. He begins receiving anonymous phone calls with
heavy breathing. Because of his immersion in the case, Graysmith loses his job and his wife
Melanie leaves him, taking their children with her. Graysmith acquires more information that
points to Allen as the Zodiac, and although circumstantial evidence seems to indicate his guilt,
the physical evidence, such as fingerprints and handwriting samples, do not implicate him.
In December 1983, Graysmith tracks Allen down to a Vallejo Ace Hardware store, where he is
employed as a sales clerk. The men have a brief encounter before Graysmith leaves. Eight years
later, victim Mike Mageau meets with authorities and identifies Allen from a police mugshot. As
the authorities walk by an airport book store, copies of Graysmith's book Zodiac are shown.
Final title cards inform the audience that Allen died in 1992 before he could be questioned
further. A DNA test performed in 2002 on an archived autopsy sample did not match a partial
DNA sample gathered from the postage stamp on one of the Zodiac letters, but this does not rule
him out as a suspect.

Cast

Jake Gyllenhaal as Robert Graysmith, a cartoonist for the San Francisco

Chronicle. While researching the film, Fincher considered Gyllenhaal to play
Graysmith. According to the director, "I really liked him in Donnie Darko and I
thought, Hes an interesting double-sided coin. He can do that naive thing but
he can also do possessed." To prepare for his role, Gyllenhaal met Graysmith
and videotaped him in order to study his mannerisms and behavior.

Mark Ruffalo as SFPD Inspector David Toschi. Initially, Ruffalo was not
interested in the project but Fincher wanted him to play Toschi. He met with
the actor and told him that he was rewriting the screenplay. "I loved what he
was saying and loved where he was going with it," the actor remembers. For
research, he read every report on the case and read all the books on the
subject. Ruffalo met Toschi and found out that he had "perfect recall of the
details and what happened when, where, who was there, what he was
wearing. He always knew what he was wearing. I think it is seared into who
he is and it was a big deal for him."

Robert Downey, Jr. as Paul Avery, a journalist at the San Francisco Chronicle
who covered the Zodiac killer case.

Anthony Edwards as SFPD Inspector William Armstrong. When casting the

role, Fincher said he thought of Edwards because "I knew I needed the most
decent person I could find, because he would be the balance of the movie. In
a weird way, this movie wouldnt exist without Bill Armstrong. Everything we
know about the Zodiac case, we know because of his notes. So in casting the
part, I wanted to get someone who is totally reliable."

Brian Cox as Melvin Belli, a prominent defense attorney who received a letter
from the Zodiac killer.

Elias Koteas as Sgt. Jack Mulanax, a police detective from Vallejo.

Donal Logue as Captain Ken Narlow, a police detective in Napa.

John Carroll Lynch as Arthur Leigh Allen, a prime suspect in the case. Allen
was never charged with these crimes.

Dermot Mulroney as Captain Marty Lee, Armstrong's and Toschi's supervisor

in the SFPD homicide division.

Philip Baker Hall as Sherwood Morrill, a handwriting analyst. Baker Hall had
previously appeared in the 2005 film The Zodiac.

Chlo Sevigny as Melanie Graysmith, Graysmith's wife.

John Getz as Templeton Peck, Chronicle managing editor.

John Terry as Charles Thieriot, another editor at the Chronicle, who is involved
with the first Zodiac letter.

Adam Goldberg as Duffy Jennings, a journalist who replaces Avery at the San
Francisco Chronicle when the latter goes to work for the San Francisco
Examiner. In 1978, he receives a letter from the Zodiac.

David Lee Smith in a cameo role as the father of the witnesses

Production
Development

David Fincher, director of Zodiac

James Vanderbilt had read Robert Graysmith's book Zodiac in 1986 while in high school. Years
later, after becoming a screenwriter, he got the opportunity to meet Graysmith, and became
fascinated by the folklore surrounding the Zodiac Killer. He then decided to try to translate the
story into a script.[2] Vanderbilt had endured bad experiences in the past, in which the endings of
his scripts had been changed, and wanted to have more control over the material this time.[2] He
pitched his adaptation of Zodiac to Mike Medavoy and Bradley J. Fischer from Phoenix Pictures,
by agreeing to write a spec script if he could have more creative control over it.[2]
Graysmith first met Fischer and Vanderbilt at the premiere of Paul Schrader's film, Auto Focus,
which was based on Graysmith's 1991 book about the life and death of actor Bob Crane.[3] A deal
was made and they optioned the rights to Zodiac and Zodiac Unmasked when they became
available after languishing at another studio for nearly a decade.[4] David Fincher was their first
choice to direct based on his work on Seven. Originally, he was going to direct an adaptation of
James Ellroy's novel, The Black Dahlia (later filmed by Brian De Palma), and envisioned a fivehour, $80 million mini-series with film stars.[5] When that fell through, Fincher left that project
and moved on to Zodiac.[5]

Fincher was drawn to this story because he spent much of his childhood in San Anselmo in
Marin County during the initial Zodiac murders. "I remember coming home and saying the
highway patrol had been following our school buses for a couple weeks now. And my dad, who
worked from home, and who was very dry, not one to soft-pedal things, turned slowly in his
chair and said: 'Oh yeah. There's a serial killer who has killed four or five people, who calls
himself Zodiac, who's threatened to take a high-powered rifle and shoot out the tires of a school
bus, and then shoot the children as they come off the bus.'"[6] For Fincher as a young boy, the
killer "was the ultimate boogeyman".[6] The director was also drawn to the unresolved ending of
Vanderbilt's screenplay because it felt true to real life, as cases are not always solved.[7]
Fincher realized that his job was to dispel the mythic stature the case had taken on over the years
by clearly defining what was fact and what was fiction.[4] He told Vanderbilt that he wanted the
screenplay re-written but with additional research done from the original police reports. Fincher
found that there was a lot of speculation and hearsay and wanted to interview people directly
involved in the case in person to see if he believed what they were telling him. Fincher did this
because he felt a burden of responsibility in making a film that convicted someone
posthumously.[4]
Fincher, Fischer and Vanderbilt spent months interviewing witnesses, family members of
suspects, retired and current investigators, the only two surviving victims, and the mayors of San
Francisco and Vallejo. Fincher said, "Even when we did our own interviews, we would talk to
two people. One would confirm some aspects of it and another would deny it. Plus, so much time
had passed, memories are affected and the different telling of the stories would change
perception. So when there was any doubt we always went with the police reports".[4] During the
course of their research, Fincher and Fischer hired Gerald McMenamin, an internationally known
forensic linguistics expert and professor of linguistics at California State University Fresno, to
analyze the Zodiac's letters. Unlike document examiners in the 1970s, he focused on the
language of the Zodiac and how he formed his sentences in terms of word structure and spelling.
[6]

Fincher and Fischer approached Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to finance the film but talks with them
fell through because the studio wanted the running time fixed at two hours and fifteen minutes.
They then approached other studios, and Warner Bros. and Paramount Pictures agreed to share
the production costs and were willing to be more flexible about the running time. The film was a
tough sell to the studios and the executives were concerned about the heavy amount of dialogue
and the lack of action scenes, as well as the inconclusive nature of the story arc.[8]
When Dave Toschi met Fincher, Fischer and Vanderbilt, the director told him that he was not
going to make another Dirty Harry (which had been loosely based on the Zodiac case). Toschi
was impressed with their knowledge of the case and afterwards, he realized that he had learned a

lot from them.[4] In addition, the Zodiac's two surviving victims, Mike Mageau and Bryan
Hartnell were consultants on the film.
Alan J. Pakulas film All the President's Men was the template for Zodiac as Fincher felt that it
was also "the story of a reporter determined to get the story at any cost and one who was new to
being an investigative reporter. It was all about his obsession to know the truth".[4] And like in
that film, he did not want to spend time telling the back story of any of the characters, focusing,
instead, on what they did in regards to the case."[9]
Vanderbilt was drawn to the notion that Graysmith went from a cartoonist to one of the most
significant investigators of the case. He pitched the story as: "What if Garry Trudeau woke up
one morning and tried to solve the Son of Sam"?[4] As he worked on the script, he became friends
with Graysmith. The filmmakers were able to get the cooperation of the Vallejo Police
Department (one of the key investigators at the time) because they hoped that the film would
inspire someone to come forward with a crucial bit of information that might help solve this
decades-old cold case.[4]
Casting

While researching the film, Fincher considered Jake Gyllenhaal to play Robert Graysmith.
According to the director, "I really liked him in Donnie Darko and I thought, 'He's an interesting
double-sided coin. He can do that naive thing but he can also do possessed.'"[10] In preparation for
his role Gyllenhaal met Graysmith, and videotaped him to study his mannerisms and behavior.[4]
Initially, Mark Ruffalo was not interested in the project but Fincher wanted him to play David
Toschi. He met with the actor and told him that he was rewriting the screenplay. "I loved what he
was saying and loved where he was going with it", the actor remembers.[11] For research, he read
every report on the case and read all the books on the subject. Ruffalo met Toschi and found out
that he had "perfect recall of the details and what happened when, where, who was there, what he
was wearing. He always knew what he was wearing. I think it is seared into who he is and it was
a big deal for him."[11]
When casting the role of Inspector William Armstrong, Fincher said he thought of Anthony
Edwards because "I knew I needed the most decent person I could find, because he would be the
balance of the movie. In a weird way, this movie wouldn't exist without Bill Armstrong.
Everything we know about the Zodiac case, we know because of his notes. So in casting the part,
I wanted to get someone who is totally reliable."[9]
Originally, Gary Oldman was to play Melvin Belli but "he went to a lot of trouble, they had
appliances, but just physically it wasn't going to work, he just didn't have the girth", Graysmith
remembers.[12] Brian Cox was cast instead.

The finished film has an unusually large cast of characters. In a May 15, 2007, film review,
Variety noted, "Performances and casting are impeccable down to the smallest role."
Principal photography

Fincher decided to use the digital Thomson Viper Filmstream camera to shoot the film. Fincher
had previously used the Thomson Viper over the past three years on commercials for Nike,
Hewlett Packard, Heineken and Lexus which allowed him to get used to and experiment with the
equipment. He was able to use inexpensive desktop software like Final Cut Pro to edit Zodiac.
Fincher remarked in an interview, "Dailies almost always end up being disappointing, like the
veil is pierced and you look at it for the first time and think, 'Oh my god, this is what I really
have to work with.' But when you can see what you have as it's gathered, it can be a much less
neurotic process."[13]
Zodiac was the first production to employ the Filmstream camera in its native Filmstream mode,
which records an uncompressed video stream, allowing for exceptional quality.
Contrary to popular belief, Zodiac was not shot entirely digitally; traditional high-speed film
cameras were used for slow-motion murder sequences.[14] Michael Mann's Miami Vice, as well as
his previous effort, Collateral (a co-production of Paramount and its current sister studio
DreamWorks, and which also starred Mark Ruffalo), were also shot with the camera but mixed in
other formats.[15] Once shot on the Viper camera, the files were converted to DVCPro HD 1080i
and edited in Final Cut Pro. This was for editorial decisions only. During the later stages of
editing the original uncompressed 1080p 4:4:4 RAW digital source footage was assembled
automatically to maintain an up-to-date digital "negative" of the film. Other digital productions
like Superman Returns or Apocalypto recorded to the HDCAM tape format.
Fincher had previously worked with director of photography Harris Savides on Seven (he shot
the opening credits) and The Game. Savides loved the script but realized, "there was so much
exposition, just people talking on the phone or having conversations. It was difficult to imagine
how it could be done in a visual way."[16] Fincher and Savides did not want to repeat the look of
Seven. The director's approach to Zodiac was to create a look mundane enough that audiences
would accept that what they were watching was the truth. The filmmakers also did not want to
glamorize the killer or tell the story through his eyes. "That would have turned the story into a
first-person-shooter video game. We didn't want to make the sort of movie that serial killers
would want to own," Fincher said.[16]
Savides' first experience with the Viper Filmstream camera was shooting a Motorola commercial
with Fincher. From there, he used it on Zodiac. Fincher wanted to make sure that the camera was
more inclined towards film production so that the studio would be more comfortable about using
it on a project with large budget. To familiarize himself with the camera, he "did as many things

'wrong' as I possibly could. I went against everything I was supposed to do with the camera."[16]
Savides felt comfortable with the camera after discovering its limitations.
Fincher and Savides used the photographs of William Eggleston, Stephen Shore's work from the
early Seventies, and actual photos from the Zodiac police files.[16] The two men worked hard to
capture the look and feel of the period as Fincher admitted, "I suppose there could have been
more VW bugs but I think what we show is a pretty good representation of the time. It is not
technically perfect. There are some flaws but some are intended."[4] The San Francisco
Chronicle was built in the old post office in the Terminal Annex Building in downtown Los
Angeles. A building on nearby Spring Street subbed for the Hall of Justice and the San Francisco
Police Department. Production began on September 12, 2005. The filmmakers shot for five
weeks in the San Francisco Bay Area and the rest of the time in Los Angeles, bringing the film in
under budget, wrapping in February 2006. The film took 115 days to shoot.[4]
Some of the cast was not happy with Fincher's exacting ways and perfectionism. Some scenes
required upwards of 70 takes. Gyllenhaal was frustrated by the director's methods and
commented in an interview, "You get a take, 5 takes, 10 takes. Some places, 90 takes. But there
is a stopping point. There's a point at which you go, 'That's what we have to work with.' But we
would reshoot things. So there came a point where I would say, well, what do I do? Where's the
risk?"[6] Downey said, "I just decided, aside from several times I wanted to garrote him, that I
was going to give him what he wanted. I think I'm a perfect person to work for him, because I
understand gulags".[6] Fincher responded, "If an actor is going to let the role come to them, they
can't resent the fact that I'm willing to wait as long as that takes. You know, the first day of
production in San Francisco we shot 56 takes of Mark and Jake and it's the 56th take that's in
the movie".[8] Ruffalo also backed up his director's methods when he said, "The way I see it is,
you enter into someone else's world as an actor. You can put your expectations aside and have an
experience that's new and pushes and changes you, or hold on to what you think it should be and
have a stubborn, immovable journey that's filled with disappointment and anger."[6]
Visual effects

Side-by-side comparison of soundstage blue screen work (left) with finished CGIenhanced scene featuring Mark Ruffalo.

Digital Domain handled the bulk of the film's 200+ effects shots, including pools of blood and
bloody fingerprints found at crime scenes. For the murder of Cecelia Shepard that took place at
Lake Berryessa, blood seepage and clothing stains were added in post-production. Fincher did

not want to shoot the blood with practical effects because wiping everything down after every
take would take too long so the murder sequences were done with CG blood.[17]
CG was also used to recreate the San Francisco neighborhood at Washington and Cherry Streets
where cab driver Paul Stine was killed. The area had changed significantly over the years and
residents didn't want the murder to be re-created in their neighborhood, so Fincher shot the sixminute sequence on a bluescreen stage. Production designer Donald Burt gave the visual effects
team detailed drawings of the intersection as it was in 1969. Photographs of every possible angle
of the area were shot with a high-resolution digital camera, allowing the effects crew to build
computer-based geometric models of homes that were then textured with period facades. 3-D
vintage police motorcycles, squad cars, a firetruck and street lights were added to the final shot.
[17]

Several of the film's establishing shots of the 70s-era Bay Area were created by the Marin
County effects house Matte World Digital. The "helicopter shots" of the fireworks-laden sky over
Vallejo, the San Francisco waterfront, and the overhead shot of the cab driving through San
Francisco were CG, as was the shot looking down at traffic from the tower of the Golden Gate
Bridge. A time-lapse sequence of the building of the Transamerica Pyramid was a hybrid of 2D
and 3D matte painting. The shot was initially created using reference photos of the Pyramid
taken from the rooftop of Francis Ford Coppola's Sentinel Building. MWD's visual effects
supervisor, Craig Barron, then researched the Pyramid's original construction techniques for
accuracy in the animated sequence to imply the passage of time within the film's story.[18]
Soundtrack
Main article: Zodiac (soundtrack)

Originally, Fincher envisioned the film's soundtrack to be composed of 40 cues of vintage music
spanning the nearly three decades of the Zodiac story. With music supervisor George Drakoulias,
the director searched for the right pop songs that reflected the era, including Three Dog Night's
cover of "Easy to Be Hard" because "it's so ingrained in my psyche as being what the summer of
'69 sounded like in northern California".[10] Initially, Fincher did not envision an original score
for the film, but rather a tapestry of sound design, vintage songs of the period, sound bites and
clips of KFRC (an AM radio giant) and "Mathews Top of the Hill Daly City" (home of a
prominent hi-fi dealership of the time).[19] The director told the studio that he did not need a
composer and would buy various songs instead. They agreed, but as the film developed, sound
designer and longtime Fincher collaborator Ren Klyce felt there were places in some scenes that
could have used music.[19] So, he inserted music from two of his favorite soundtracks, David
Shire's scores for The Conversation and All the President's Men. Fincher was eager to work with
Shire as All the President's Men was one of his favorite films and one of the primary cinematic
influences on Zodiac. He reminded Klyce of the deal that he had made with the studio.

Klyce got in touch with sound and film editor Walter Murch who worked on The Conversation
and he got Klyce in touch with Shire. Fincher sent the composer a copy of the script and flew
him in for a meeting and a screening in L.A. At first, Fincher only wanted 1520 minutes of
score and for it to be all based on solo piano. As Shire worked on it and incorporated textures of
a Charles Ives piece called, "The Unanswered Question" and Conversation-based cues, he found
that he had 37 minutes of original music. The orchestra Shire assembled consisted of musicians
from the San Francisco Opera and S.F. ballet. Shire said, "There are 12 signs of the Zodiac and
there is a way of using atonal and tonal music. So we used 12 tones, never repeating any of them
but manipulating them".[4] He used specific instruments to represent the characters: the trumpet
for Toschi, the solo piano for Graysmith and the dissonant strings for the Zodiac killer.[4]
Release

An early version of Zodiac ran three hours and eight minutes. It was supposed to be released in
time for Academy Award consideration but Paramount felt that the film ran too long and asked
Fincher to make changes. Contractually, he had final cut and once he reached a length he felt was
right, the director refused to make any further cuts.[9] To trim down the film to two hours and
forty minutes, he had to cut a two-minute blackout montage of "hit songs signaling the passage
of time from Joni Mitchell to Donna Summer." It was replaced with a title card that reads, "Four
years later."[6] Another cut scene that test screening audiences did not like involved "three guys
talking into a speakerphone" to get a search warrant as Toschi and Armstrong talk to SFPD Capt.
Marty Lee (Dermot Mulroney) about their case against suspect Arthur Leigh Allen.[20] Fincher
said that this scene would probably be put back on the DVD.[21]
To promote Zodiac, Paramount posted on light-poles in major cities original sketches of the
actual Zodiac killer with the words, "In theaters March 2nd," at the bottom.[22] The film was
screened in competition at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival[23] on May 17, 2007 with Fincher and
Gyllenhaal participating in a press conference afterwards.[24] The director's cut of Zodiac was
given a rare screening at the Walter Reade Theater in New York City on November 19, 2007 with
Fincher being interviewed by film critic Kent Jones afterwards.[25]
Home media

The DVD for Zodiac was released on July 24, 2007[26] and is available widescreen or fullscreen,
presented in anamorphic widescreen, and an English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround track. There are
no extra materials included.[27]
According to David Prior, producer of the subsequent two-disc special edition, the initial bare
bones edition "was only reluctantly agreed to by Fincher because I needed more time on the
bonus material. The studio was locked into their release date, so Fincher allowed that version to
be released first. It had nothing to do with Fincher 'double dipping his own movie before it even
makes it to stores' and everything to do with buying more time for the special edition".[28] He

stated that the theatrical cut would only be available on the single-disc edition. Prior elaborated
further: "Nobody wants fans feeling like they're being taken advantage of, and I know that
double-dipping creates that impression. That's why it was so important to me that consumers be
told there was another version coming. In this case it really was a rock-and-a-hard-place
situation, and delaying the second release was done strictly for the benefit of the final product...
But this is a very ambitious project, easily the most far-reaching I've ever worked on, and owing
largely to studio snafus that I can't really elaborate on, I didn't have enough time to do it properly.
Thus Fincher bought me the extra time by agreeing to a staggered release, which I'm very
grateful for".[29] In its first week, rentals for the DVD earned $6.7 million.[30]
The two-disc director's cut DVD and HD DVD were released on January 8, 2008, with its UK
release on Blu-ray and DVD announced for September 29, 2008. Disc 1 features, in addition to a
longer cut of the film, an audio commentary by Fincher and a second by Gyllenhaal, Downey,
Fischer, Vanderbilt, and Ellroy. Disc 2 includes a trailer, a "Zodiac Deciphered" documentary, a
"Visual Effects of Zodiac" featurette, previsualization split-screen comparisons for the Blue
Rock Springs, Lake Berryessa, and San Francisco murder sequences, a "This is the Zodiac
Speaking" featurette, and a "His Name Was Arthur Leigh Allen" featurette. Other extras
apparently originally intended for the set, including TV spots and featurettes on "Digital
Workflow", "Linguistic Analysis", "Jeopardy Surface: Geographic Profiling" (Dr. Kim Rossmo's
geographic profile of the Zodiac), and "The Psychology of Aggression: Behavioral Profiling"
(Special Agent Sharon Pagaling-Hagan's behavioral profile of the Zodiac) were omitted.
However, the latter three featurettes were made available on the film's website.[31] This new
version runs five minutes longer than the theatrical cut.[32] For Oscar contention, Paramount
distributed the Director's Cut DVD to the Producers Guild of America, the Writers Guild of
America and the Screen Actors Guild, instead of the official release version. This was the first
time that the studio had done this.[32]
Reception
Box office

Opening in 2,362 theaters on March 2, 2007, the film grossed US$13.3 million in its opening
weekend, placing second and posting a per-theater average of $5,671.[33] The film was outgrossed
by fellow opener Wild Hogs and saw a decline of over 50% in its second weekend, losing out to
the record-breaking 300.[34] It grossed $33 million in North America and $51 million in the rest of
the world, bringing its current total to $84 million, above its estimated $65 million production
budget.[35] In an interview with Sight & Sound magazine, Fincher addressed the film's low gross
at the North American box office: "Even with the box office being what it is, I still think there's
an audience out there for this movie. Everyone has a different idea about marketing, but my
philosophy is that if you market a movie to 16-year-old boys and don't deliver Saw or Seven,
they're going to be the most vociferous ones coming out of the screening saying 'This movie

sucks.' And you're saying goodbye to the audience who would get it because they're going to
look at the ads and say, 'I don't want to see some slasher movie.'"[13]
Critical response

Overall, reviews of the film were highly positive. Entertainment Weekly critic Owen Gleiberman
awarded the film an "A" grade, hailing the film as a "procedural thriller for the information age"
that "spins your head in a new way, luring you into a vortex and then deeper still."[36] Nathan Lee
in his review for The Village Voice wrote that director Fincher's "very lack of pretense, coupled
with a determination to get the facts down with maximum economy and objectivity, gives Zodiac
its hard, bright integrity. As a crime saga, newspaper drama, and period piece, it works just fine.
As an allegory of life in the information age, it blew my mind."[37] Todd McCarthy's review in
Variety praised the film's "almost unerringly accurate evocation of the workaday San Francisco
of 3540 years ago. Forget the distorted emphasis on hippies and flower-power that many such
films indulge in; this is the city as it was experienced by most people who lived and worked
there."[38] David Ansen, in his review for Newsweek magazine, wrote, "Zodiac is meticulously
crafted Harris Savides's state-of-the-art digital cinematography has a richness indistinguishable
from film and it runs almost two hours and 40 minutes. Still, the movie holds you in its grip
from start to finish. Fincher boldly (and some may think perversely) withholds the emotional and
forensic payoff we're conditioned to expect from a big studio movie."[39]
Some critics, however, were displeased with the film's long running time and lack of action
scenes. "The film gets mired in the inevitable red tape of police investigations," wrote Bob
Longino of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, who also felt that the film "stumbles to a rather
unfulfilling conclusion" and "seems to last as long as the Oscars."[40] Andrew Sarris of The New
York Observer felt that "Mr. Fincher's flair for casting is the major asset of his curiously
attenuated return to the serial-killer genre. I keep saying 'curiously' with regard to Mr. Fincher,
because I can't really figure out what he is up to in Zodiac with its two-hour-and-37-minute
running time for what struck me as a shaggy-dog narrative."[41] Christy Lemire wrote in the San
Francisco Chronicle that "Jake Gyllenhaal is both the central figure and the weakest link... But
he's never fleshed out sufficiently to make you believe that he'd sacrifice his safety and that of
his family to find the truth. We are told repeatedly that the former Eagle Scout is just a genuinely
good guy, but that's not enough."[42]
In the United Kingdom, Time Out magazine wrote, "Zodiac isn't a puzzle film in quite that way;
instead its subject is the compulsion to solve puzzles, and its coup is the creeping recognition,
quite contrary to the flow of crime cinema, of how fruitless that compulsion can be."[43] Peter
Bradshaw in his review for The Guardian commended the film for its "sheer cinematic virility,"
and gave it four stars out of five.[44] In his review for Empire magazine, Kim Newman gave the
film four out of five stars and wrote, "You'll need patience with the film's approach, which
follows its main characters by poring over details, and be prepared to put up with a couple of rote

family arguments and weary cop conversations, but this gripping character study becomes more
agonisingly suspenseful as it gets closer to an answer that can't be confirmed."[45] Graham Fuller
in Sight & Sound magazine wrote, "the tone is pleasingly flat and mundane, evoking the
demoralising grind of police work in a pre-feminist, pre-technological era. As such, Zodiac is
considerably more adult than both Seven, which salivates over the macabre cat-and-mouse game
it plays with the audience, and the macho brinkmanship of Fight Club."[46] Not all British critics
liked the film. David Thompson in The Guardian felt that in relation to the rest of Fincher's
career, Zodiac was "the worst yet, a terrible disappointment in which an ingenious and deserving
all-American serial killer nearly gets lost in the meandering treatment of cops and journalists
obsessed with the case."[47]
In France, Le Monde newspaper praised Fincher for having "obtained a maturity that impresses
by his mastery of form," while Libration described the film as "a thriller of elegance
magnificently photographed by the great Harry Savides." However, Le Figaro wrote, "No
audacity, no invention, nothing but a plot which intrigues without captivating, disturbs without
terrifying, interests without exciting."[48]
As of December 2015, Zodiac has a rating of 89% rating on Rotten Tomatoes[49] based on 233
reviews dubbing it "Certified Fresh". Its consensus states "A quiet, dialogue-driven thriller that
delivers with scene after scene of gut-wrenching anxiety. David Fincher also spends more time
illustrating nuances of his characters and recreating the mood of the 70s than he does on gory
details of murder." It also has a 78 metascore at Metacritic.[50]
Top ten lists

Only two 2007 films (No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood) appeared on more
critics' top ten lists than Zodiac.[51] Some of the notable top-ten list appearances are:[52]

1st Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out New York

1st Desson Thomson, The Washington Post

2nd Manohla Dargis, The New York Times

2nd Mike Russell, The Oregonian

2nd Nathan Lee, The Village Voice

2nd Wesley Morris, The Boston Globe

3rd Nathan Rabin, The A.V. Club

3rd Scott Tobias, The A.V. Club

3rd Film Comment[53]

3rd Sight & Sound

4th Scott Foundas, LA Weekly

5th Philip Martin, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

6th Empire

6th Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly

6th Lou Lumenick, New York Post

7th Richard Roeper, At the Movies with Ebert & Roeper

7th Glenn Kenny, Premiere

7th Keith Phipps, The A.V. Club

9th Marc Mohan, The Oregonian

9th Noel Murray, The A.V. Club

9th Ty Burr, The Boston Globe

10th Claudia Puig, USA Today

10th Liam Lacey and Rick Groen, The Globe and Mail

10th Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly

10th Rene Rodriguez, The Miami Herald

In the British Film Institute's 2012 Sight & Sound polls of the greatest movies ever made, three
critics and one director Bong Joon-ho named Zodiac one of their 10 favorite films.[54] The
film's stature has also grown in recent years: in August 2016, it was ranked 12th on a critics' poll
conducted by BBC of the 21st century's greatest films.[55]
Accolades

Nominations

Cannes Film Festival 2007: Palme d'Or

Chicago Film Critics Association Awards 2007: Best Director, Best Screenplay
Adapted

Satellite Awards 2007: Best Supporting Actor (Brian Cox), Best

Cinematography (Harris Savides), Best Adapted Screenplay (James
Vanderbilt)

Teen Choice Awards 2007: Choice Movie Actor: Horror/Thriller (Jake

Gyllenhaal)

Toronto Film Critics Association Awards 2007: Best Director (David Fincher),
Best Picture

Online Film Critics Society Awards 2007: Best Picture, Best Director, Best
Adapted Screenplay, Best Editing

World Soundtrack Awards 2007: Best Original Soundtrack of the Year (David
Shire)

Saturn Award 2008: Best Action or Adventure Film

Bodil Awards 2008: Best American Film

Empire Awards 2008: Best Director (David Fincher), Best Film, Best Thriller

Edgar Allan Poe Awards 2008: Best Motion Picture Screenplay (James
Vanderbilt)

Golden Trailer Awards 2008: Best Teaser Poster

London Critics Circle Film Awards 2008: Director of The Year (David Fincher),
Film of The Year

USC Scripter Award 2008: James Vanderbilt (screenwriter), Robert Graysmith

(author)

Visual Effects Society Awards 2008: Outstanding Supporting Visual Effects in

a Motion Picture and Outstanding Created Environment in a Live Action
Motion Picture

Writers Guild of America Awards 2007: Best Adapted Screenplay (James

Vanderbilt and Robert Graysmith) from Zodiac

See also

2007 in film

List of films based on crime books

References
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"Zodiac Production Notes" (PDF). Paramount Pictures Press Kit. 2007.
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Cinematical. Retrieved 2008-09-24.
Taubin, Amy (May 2007). "Nerds on a Wire". Sight & Sound.
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Screening". The Reeler. Retrieved 2008-09-24.
"The Numbers". Retrieved 2010-07-23.
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2007-07-13.
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coming... in 2008!?". DVDActive. Retrieved 2008-09-24.
McClintock, Pamela (October 16, 2007). "Paramount puts out Fire screeners".
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 "Weekend Box Office for March 24, 2007". Box Office Mojo. March 24,
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 "Metacritic: 2007 Film Critic Top Ten Lists". Metacritic. Retrieved 2008-01-05.
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1.

"The 21st Century's 100 greatest films". Retrieved 2016-09-09.

Further reading

Film & Video: VFX for Zodiac

Premiere magazine article

San Francisco Chronicle set visit

Cineaste review

Building Suspense Along the Trail of an Invisible Man - an analysis of a scene

from the film

External links
Wikiquote has quotations related to: Zodiac

Official website

Zodiac at the Internet Movie Database

Zodiac at Box Office Mojo

Zodiac at AllMovie
[show]

Films directed by David Fincher

[show]

Zodiac Killer
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