David Fincher has been developing an adaptation of Alexis Nolent‘s French graphic novel The Killer for nearly 14 years, and now the project has gained renewed momentum, as Fincher has moved it from Paramount to Netflix, where he recently signed a four-year deal.

Andrew Kevin Walker, who wrote Fincher‘s best movie Seven, will adapt The Killer, and the director has his eye on Michael Fassbender to star in the film, which will be produced by Ceán Chaffin. Production is expected to start in September.

The Killer follows a cold-blooded assassin who starts to experience an existential crisis as he grows a conscience in a world with no moral compass. Brad Pitt was in fact circling the lead role at one point when the film was in development at Paramount before that studio put it in turnaround, allowing Fincher to take the project elsewhere.

Fincher is currently battling for an Oscar nomination for his passion project Mank, though like The Irishman last year, the one-time frontrunner seems to have regressed to also-ran status in recent weeks. I worship at the altar of Fincher, but I thought it was the first legitimately bad movie the director has ever made. Fortunately, The Killer sounds like a return to form.

Meanwhile, Fassbender is all over the place, starring in legitimately great movies like Shame and Steve Jobs one minute, and crap like The Snowman, Assassin’s Creed and X-Men: Dark Phoenix the next. The Irish actor will soon be seen in Taika Waititi’s inspirational soccer movie Next Goal Wins, which sounds promising.

When Collider reached out to Netflix earlier this month about The Killer, the streamer denied the project was in development, so suffice to say, stay tuned for more Netflix news very soon.

via Collider