Five years ago, one of the biggest directors of our age wouldn’t pick Ben Affleck to headline his next project.
That was before Affleck reinvented his career behind the camera and proved with Argo he could still command the screen in a post-Gigli world.
Now, Affleck is the main attraction in director David Fincher’s hotly anticipated thriller Gone Girl.
Gone Girl casts Affleck as a man searching for his missing wife (Rosamund Pike). That’s more or less all we glean from the trailer, but the tone and potential both appear promising.
The trailer prominently features an obscure Elvis Costello cover (She) and lacks the usual fade-to-black trickery that dominates most trailers today. The focus is on a relationship, and a tricky one at that, given the emotional flashbacks teased.
Fincher (The Social Network) clearly has confidence in the material and cast. Frankly, Pike should be a major star by now given her beauty and depth, and this film may just right that wrong.
Gone Girl hits theaters Oct. 3.
Follow Christian Toto on Twitter @TotoMovies