Nearly five years after it was first reported that Robert Towne and David Fincher were in development on a TV series for Netflix based on the early days of Jake Gittes, Towne has given an update to Variety, perhaps to coincide with the 50th anniversary of Chinatown's premiere on June 20, 1974.
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| Robert Towne and David Fincher |
“All I’m likely to say is yes, all the episodes have been written for Netflix. Working with a force of nature like David Fincher, tho’ occasionally humbling, is never less than enlightening.”
The initial report back in 2019 stated that Towne and Fincher were merely developing a pilot script - this latest news suggests that Netflix then commissioned them to write a full series without shooting the pilot episode, which is somewhat encouraging. Variety does state, however, that Netflix has no comment on the project, just as it had none in 2019.
Towne goes on to provide a few tantalising details about the series itself:
“When David and I first started talking we agreed we wouldn’t try to replicate Noah Cross, but we did want to keep in mind that the crimes that history considers monstrous are those that will not remain in the past but insist on visiting the future, and I think we managed that.”
He also confirms that Lou Escobar will play a crucial part in the story, as well as the fact that Jake and Lou were once partners and friends on the police force, as opposed to having the very strained, almost hostile relationship portrayed in both Chinatown and The Two Jakes:
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| Jack Nicholson & Perry Lopez as Gittes & Escobar in Chinatown |
“Chinatown, with all its implications for an evolving Los Angeles, is central to understanding the evolving Jake Gittes, as is his friendship with and dependence on his partner Lou Escobar. It was enlightening to delve into their backstory, Escobar’s in particular. Small details that are touched on in the film are given life and breadth in a way that surprised even me.”
Towne finishes off his comments on the prequel series with, interestingly enough, a somewhat dismissive reference to the abandoned third film of the Jake Gittes trilogy:
“The questions tho’ intriguing have no answer, at least none that I can give. My involvement in ‘The Two Jakes’ ended before Jack directed the film. And with it any speculation as to where Jake Gittes might be, and what he might be doing at a future date. A character doesn’t just appear fully formed like Athena from the head of Zeus. How he or she evolves or devolves is — let’s face it — the principal craft of the screenwriter. Jake Gittes was in his late thirties in ‘Chinatown.’ And whatever I may have speculated in my own late thirties is most likely not what I’d venture to create now."
“Which is why I’m fond of the prequel that places Gittes newly in Los Angeles. … It is to this young Jake Gittes that I am particularly drawn. Because for all his bravado — his not playing by the rules, his penchant to be in charge — he controls events far less than events control him. And by the time he figures it out, it’s much too late to do anything about it, which seems to me the plight of the very young and the very old.”
So, apart from painting a picture of a young, brash Jake Gittes, one even more oblivious to what's really going on than the character in Chinatown, he's effectively put the kibosh once again on the later years of Jake Gittes being explored any further.
Hopefully that won't be the case with this new project. There are a few bits and pieces out there regarding Jake Gittes' past beyond what was mentioned in the two existing films, and I'll be exploring them in another article to provide some clues as to what we might expect to see in the TV series.
The rest of Towne's interview with Variety can be found here.
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