David Fincher Confirms That MINDHUNTER Season 3 Most Likely Won't Happen and Explains Why

Well, shit. David Fincher’s Mindhunter was such an incredible show, and I loved it. I was holding out for hope for a third season, but Fincher has confirmed that the third season is not going to happen, and I’m pretty bummed out about it.

Fincher shared the disappointing news during a recent interview with Vulture, and he explained that the reason why is because making the first two seasons was exhausting:

"We had done the first season of Mindhunter without a showrunner, with me pinch-hitting on a week-by-week basis. 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.'”

So, instead of making another season of Mindhunter, Fincher explained that the Netflix executives just asked him what he'd rather make instead, and that led to him making his upcoming film Mank. The filmmaker went on to say that a third Mindhunter season also probably wouldn't make sense for Netflix on a financial level.

"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."

While I’m super bummed out that Mindhunter Season 3 isn’t going to happen, I understand why Fincher doesn’t want to do it. It’s a lot of intense work! I just wish he would have been able to finish the story that he was setting up in the first two seasons with BTK.