Fincher talks us through the off-screen torture of making ‘Seven’

By any reasonable measure, David Fincher had made it by 1990. He was directing rapturous music videos for Madonna (“Express Yourself,” “Vogue”) and doing lucrative ads for top brands worldwide. The production company he co-founded, Propaganda Films, had cornered the MTV market, helping launch the careers of such future notables as Spike Jonze and Antoine Fuqua.

But there was Hollywood to conquer and Fincher, not yet 30, rushed headlong into his feature debut, one that no superfan of Ridley Scott (also a genius director of commercials) could pass up: the third movie of the “Alien” franchise. While it has since found a hardcore base of defenders, 1992’s dour, much-mussed “Alien 3,” a troubled production, was a disappointment that Fincher has largely disowned.

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