David Fincher’s New Netflix Assassin Movie Fulfills A 6-Year-Old Video Game Adaptation Forgotten By Hulu

David Fincher’s latest feature film The Killer partially makes up for a forgotten television adaptation of a celebrated video game series. The new movie starring Michael Fassbender and a cold-blooded assassin has quickly emerged as a major hit for Netflix after debuting on its streaming platform on November 10, 2023. Since its release, The Killer has maintained the number-one spot on Netflix’s U.S. Top Movies list despite the recent addition of the highly popular Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse on the platform in November 2023 as well.

While The Killer has been scrutinized by some Fincher fans for its relatively straightforward and unimaginative plot, what the film lacks in depth of its story is made up by the richness of the influences and details within The Killer’s sharp 119-minute runtime. The Killer is admittedly not as complex or riveting as the acclaimed director’s breakout movie Se7en (1995), which was also the last feature film collaboration between Fincher and screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker. However, The Killer does succeed in creating stylish and well-orchestrated content about a highly-trained assassin in a way that one anticipated Hulu series has yet to accomplish.

David Fincher’s The Killer Is The Closest We’ve Gotten To Hulu’s The Hitman TV Show In 6 Years

Fincher’s The Killer has inadvertently succeeded in filling a major gap left by Hulu’s previously announced television adaptation of the HITMAN™ video game series that has not gotten any updates since 2017. There are several aesthetic and methodological similarities between the Agent 47 protagonist of the Hitman video game and Michael Fassbender’s rendition of the unnamed association in the new Fincher film. There has been some speculation that Fincher and Walker may have incorporated elements of the celebrated video game franchise in their construction of The Killer, but there has been no official confirmation of such by either.

Still, the ostensible similarities are hard for any fan of the Hitman games to miss, with part of Fassbender’s narration referencing “staged accidents, gradual poisonings”, and the concept of introducing creativity in the assassination strategies. One scene in which Fassbender’s Killer nonchalantly elbows a suspicious paint can off of a moving ferry into the water below feels a lot like a cutscene of 47 discarding contraband in a Hitman game. The Killer’s various outfits and disguises, particularly the recycling worker one, are also reminiscent of what Agent 47 would wear during missions. Add a signature red tie and a barcode to the back of his head and Fassbender’s Killer could have easily doubled as Agent 47.

Netflix Turning The Killer Into A Franchise Could Destroy Hulu’s The Hitman Adaptation

Some recent updates involving new trademarks made by Twentieth Century Fox of three HITMAN™ titles imply that the long-awaited Hulu series could finally be on its way. At this point, even if the official series does get made at Hulu in 2024 or beyond, Fincher’s The Killer already acts as a spiritual adaptation of the beloved video game franchise. This likeness could spell trouble for the Hulu series despite its official title as an installment of the HITMAN™ franchise, especially considering the two previous wildly disappointing film adaptations of the Agent 47 saga, Hitman (2007) and Hitman: Agent 47 (2015). Fincher can potentially create a better HITMAN™ franchise than the Hulu series could under The Killer name.