Here's Why We're Still Hoping Mindhunter S3 Happens

Summary

• Mindhunter ended after two seasons to the dismay of its dedicated fan base.
• David Fincher explained that there were two reasons for the show's cancellation, the main being that the budget did not match the audience.
• Season 3 would require an even bigger budget than its predecessors, but that's exactly why it could be a game-changer for the show.

David Fincher's new film The Killer, which landed on Netflix in late October, reminded many fans of the legendary filmmaker of another (and arguably much better) Fincher-Netflix project, the psychological crime series Mindhunter.

The show about agents Jonathan Groff's Holden Ford, Holt McCallany's Bill Tench and psychologist Anna Torv's Wendy Carr, who stood at the origin of a behavioral unit in the FBI, attracted a dedicated group of fans during its short two-season run.

And while the story didn't leave any cliffhangers, many viewers were still disappointed that the show never made it to a third season, which was an active discussion when Season 2 was released in 2019.

Why Mindhunter Season 3 never saw the light of day

David Fincher explained in several interviews that there were actually two main reasons that led him and Netflix to cancel Mindhunter.

First, Fincher was heavily invested in the show's production, which led to his exhaustion and need to rest and turn his attention to other projects like Mank, Love, Death and Robots S2, and The Killer.

Also, the studio didn't want to tie the cast to a project that might never be renewed, so they released the stars of the show from their contracts and let them move on with their careers.

The second reason, and undoubtedly the crucial one for Netflix, was that the first two seasons of Mindhunter failed to garner enough viewers to justify the show's budget.

'For the viewership that it had, it was a very expensive show,' Fincher told Vulture. 'Dollars have to equal eyeballs.'

From the reports it looks like Season 3 would be even more expensive than its predecessors, so that was probably the main factor in the studio's decision.

But this is also the reason why we still hope to see Mindhunter Season 3 on the small screen one day.

The plot of Mindhunter Season 3 sounds amazing

Andrew Dominik, the director of Mindhunter Season 2, revealed in an interview with Collider what the third chapter would be about if it were to happen.

It turns out that Ford and Tench were supposed to finally get out of their basement and make criminal profiling a thing by going to Hollywood to hang out with popular Hollywood directors famous for their crime and serial killer movies.

'One of them was going to be hooking up with Jonathan Demme and the other one was going to be hooking up with Michael Mann. And it was all going to be about profiling making it into the sort of zeitgeist, the public consciousness,' Dominik said.

Now, criminal profiling in '80s Hollywood definitely sounds like something we need to see and something that could actually be a game-changer for the show, giving it the success it deserves.

So even though Fincher and Netflix's decision to cancel Mindhunter sounds final for now, we're still rooting for everyone to give the show a second chance in the years to come.

After all, Fincher is now done with all the projects that caused him to put Mindhunter on hold in 2019.

Sources: Vulture, Collider.