Zodiac is a 2007 American crime thriller film directed by David Fincher and written by James Vanderbilt, based on the non-fiction books by Robert Graysmith: Zodiac (1986) and Zodiac Unmasked (2002). It stars Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo, and Robert Downey Jr., with Anthony Edwards, Brian Cox, Elias Koteas, Donal Logue, John Carroll Lynch, Chloë Sevigny, Philip Baker Hall, and Dermot Mulroney in supporting roles.
The film tells the story of the manhunt for the Zodiac Killer, a serial killer who terrorized the San Francisco Bay Area during the late 1960s and early 1970s, taunting police with letters, bloodstained clothing, and ciphers mailed to newspapers. The case remains one of the United States' 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 most of the film and used traditional high-speed film cameras for slow-motion murder sequences.
Zodiac was released by Paramount Pictures in the United States and Canada and by Warner Bros. Pictures in international markets on March 2, 2007. It received largely positive reviews, with praise for its writing, directing, acting, and historical accuracy. The film was nominated for several awards, including the Saturn Award for Best Action, Adventure or Thriller Film. It grossed over $84.7 million worldwide on a production budget of $65 million. In a 2016 critics' poll conducted by the BBC, Zodiac was voted the 12th greatest film of the 21st century.
In the years since its release, the film has garnered a large cult following, with many claiming it to be David Fincher's magnum opus. Most of the film's followers praise its direction, acting, writing, cinematography, production design, soundtrack, attention to detail, and accuracy to both the real life investigation and the obsession that gripped some of those who were either directly involved with or close to the investigation itself.
Plot
On July 4, 1969, an unknown man attacks Darlene Ferrin and Mike Mageau with a handgun at a lovers' lane in Vallejo, California. Only Mike survives and later disappears from the public eye. One month later, the San Francisco Chronicle receives encrypted letters written by the killer, calling himself "Zodiac", who threatens to kill a dozen people, unless his coded message containing his identity is published.
Political cartoonist Robert Graysmith, who correctly guesses that his identity is not in the message, is not taken seriously by crime reporter Paul Avery or the editors and is excluded from the initial details about the killings. When the newspaper publishes the letters, a married couple deciphers one, revealing it indeed did not contain the killer's name. On September 27, the killer stabs law student, Bryan Hartnell and Cecelia Shepard at Lake Berryessa in Napa County; Cecelia dies two days later.
At the office, Avery makes fun of Graysmith before they discuss the coded letters. Graysmith interprets the letter, which Avery finds helpful, and he begins sharing information. One of Graysmith's insights about the letters is that Zodiac's reference to man as, "the most dangerous animal of them all," is a reference to the 1932 film The Most Dangerous Game, which features the villainous Count Zaroff, a man who hunts live human prey.
On October 11, San Francisco taxicab driver Paul Stine is shot and killed in the city's Presidio Heights district. The Zodiac killer mails pieces of Stine's bloodstained shirt to the Chronicle along with a taunting letter. San Francisco police inspectors Dave Toschi and his partner, Bill Armstrong, are assigned to the case by Captain Marty Lee, and work closely with Vallejo's Jack Mulanax and Captain Ken Narlow in Napa. Someone claiming to be Zodiac continues to send taunting letters and speaks on the phone with lawyer, Melvin Belli, on the KGO-TV morning talk show, hosted by Jim Dunbar.
On August 4, 1971, Detectives Toschi, Armstrong, and Mulanax question Arthur Leigh Allen, a suspect in the Vallejo case. They notice that he wears a Zodiac wristwatch, with the same logo used by the killer, and Toschi thinks he is the killer. However, a handwriting expert Sherwood 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 paranoid, he turns to drugs and alcohol. He shares information with the Riverside Police Department that the killer might have been active before the initial killings, angering Toschi and Armstrong. The case's notoriety weighs on Toschi, who cannot sit through a Hollywood film, Dirty Harry, loosely based on the Zodiac case.
In 1976, Avery moves to the Sacramento Bee. Graysmith persistently contacts Toschi about the Zodiac murders, and eventually impresses him with his knowledge of the case. While Toschi cannot directly give Graysmith access to the evidence, he provides names in other police departments where Zodiac murders occurred. Armstrong transfers from the San Francisco Police homicide division, and Toschi is demoted for supposedly forging a Zodiac letter in 1978.
Graysmith continues his own investigation, profiled in the Chronicle, and gives a television interview about the book he is writing on the case. He begins receiving phone calls from someone breathing heavily. As his obsession deepens, Graysmith loses his job, and his wife Melanie leaves him, taking their children. Graysmith learns that Allen lived close to Ferrin, and his birthday matches the one Zodiac gave when he spoke to one of Melvin Belli's maids. While circumstantial evidence seems to indicate his guilt, the physical evidence, such as fingerprints and handwriting samples, does not implicate him.
On December 20, 1983, Graysmith tracks Allen to a Vallejo Ace Hardware store, where he is employed as a sales clerk; they stare at each other before Graysmith leaves. On August 16, 1991, after Graysmith's book, Zodiac, has become a bestseller, Mike Mageau resurfaces after years of drug use, and identifies Allen from a police mugshot.
A textual epilogue says that Allen died of a heart attack in 1992 before police could question him; and though a 2002 DNA test did not match Allen's, the police refused to rule him out as a suspect. Allen remains the prime and only suspect in the counties of Napa and Solano and the city of Vallejo, and to this day, the case remains open.
Cast
Jake Gyllenhaal as Robert Graysmith Mark Ruffalo as Inspector Dave Toschi Robert Downey Jr. as Paul Avery Anthony Edwards as Inspector Bill Armstrong Brian Cox as Melvin Belli Charles Fleischer as Bob Vaughn Zach Grenier as Mel Nicolai Philip Baker Hall as Sherwood Morrill Elias Koteas as Sergeant Jack Mulanax James LeGros as Detective George Bawart Donal Logue as Captain Ken Narlow John Carroll Lynch as Arthur Leigh Allen Dermot Mulroney as Captain Marty Lee Chloë Sevigny as Melanie Graysmith John Terry as Charles Thieriot June Diane Raphael as Carol Toschi Ciara Moriarty as Darlene Ferrin Adam Goldberg as Duffy Jennings Tom Verica as Jim Dunbar Lee Norris as Mike Mageau Jimmi Simpson as Older Mike Mageau Joel Bissonnette as Inspector Kracke John Getz as Templeton Peck John Mahon as Captain Gillette Matt Winston as John Allen Jules Bruff as Catherine Allen John Ennis as Terry Pascoe Patrick Scott Lewis as Bryan Hartnell Pell James as Cecelia Shepard Clea DuVall as Linda del Buono Zachary Sauers as Aaron Graysmith Micah Sauers as David Graysmith Candy Clark as Carol Fisher Paul Schulze as Sandy Panzarella John Hemphill as Donald Cheney Ed Setrakian as Al Hyman The titular serial killer is portrayed by different actors in different scenes: Richmond Arquette as Zodiac 1 / Zodiac 2 Bob Stephenson as Zodiac 3 John Lacy as Zodiac 4 Barry Livingston as Copy Editor #3 Ione Skye as Kathleen Johns (uncredited)
Production
Development Robert Graysmith first sold the film rights to his true crime book Zodiac to Shane Salerno, with whom he had established a close relationship. Salerno managed to make a deal with Ricardo Mestres of Great Oaks Entertainment to co-produce and write the film for Touchstone Pictures. According to Stuart Hazeldine, who was pitched to rewrite it, the script would have been about the Zodiac killer resurfacing in Los Angeles.
James Vanderbilt had read Graysmith's book Zodiac 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 decided to try to translate the story into a script. 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. He pitched his adaptation of Zodiac to Mike Medavoy and Bradley J. Fischer from Phoenix Pictures, agreeing to write a spec script if he could have more creative control over it.
Graysmith met Fischer and Vanderbilt at the premiere of Paul Schrader's film Auto Focus, based on Graysmith's 1991 book about the life and death of actor Bob Crane. 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. 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 five-hour, $80 million mini-series with film stars. When that failed to materialize, Fincher left that project and moved on to Zodiac.
For the young Fincher, he was drawn to the Zodiac story because he spent much of his childhood in San Anselmo in Marin County during the initial murders; he thought the killer "was the ultimate boogeyman". 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. Fincher felt his job was to dispel the enduring mythic stature of the case by clearly defining what was fact and what was fiction. He told Vanderbilt that he wanted the screenplay rewritten with research done from the original police reports. Fincher found that there was much speculation and hearsay and, therefore, wanted to interview people who were directly involved in the case in-person to see if their stories were believable. He did this because he felt a burden of responsibility in making a film that convicted someone posthumously.
Fincher, Fischer and Vanderbilt spent months interviewing witnesses, family members of suspects, retired and current investigators, the 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." During the course of their research, Fincher and Fischer hired Gerald McMenamin, a 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 structure and spelling.