David Fincher Reveals MINDHUNTER Season 2 Release Date

We've known for some time that Mindhunter will finally return to Netflix this August, as Charlize Theron teased the long-awaited second season of David Fincher's true crime series back in May. During a chat with Elvis Mitchell on this week's installment of KCRW's The Treatment, Fincher revealed that Mindhunter season two will debut on August 16, specifically, while also confirming details about Andrew Dominik's involvement and some of the specific cases/killers the upcoming season will cover. 

Regarding Dominik, Fincher says the Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford director reached out to Fincher and said he'd like to be involved with season two in some capacity. Recalling their initial meeting, Fincher says, "When we first sat down he said, ‘What is it about this world that seems so American? There is something going on here.’ I said the show is about narcissism. The show is about needing to be seen." There is something eerily timely about Mindhunter beyond our collective obsesstion with true crime, and Fincher nails it. 

The filmmaker also confirmed that the second season will be largely concerned with the Atlanta Child Murders, which occurred between 1979 and 1981 and resulted in the conviction of Wayne Williams. FBI criminal profiler John Douglas (whose Mindhunter book serves as the basis for the show) strongly believed they apprehended the man responsible for the series of heinous crimes, though Williams' guilt has been debated in recent years. Williams will have a substantial role in the second season, which sees Jonathan Groff's Agent Holden Ford & Co. coming in to assist with the Atlanta Child Murders case in the back-half of the investigation. Says Fincher:

You could probably do three seasons on the Atlanta Child Murders. t’s a huge and sweeping and tragic story. We couldn’t do it justice in the background of our nine hours. We had to choose to dramatize. … [The FBI] are the last guys in, they’re trying to help out something that has its own momentum and politics. It’s a divided battlefield. They’re coming in to throw this federal umbrella over everything to make everyone feel OK about sharing information.

In addition to the Atlanta Child Murders, Fincher confirms that David Berkowitz (aka the Son of Sam) and Charles Manson will make appearances in season two – the latter of whom is played by Damon Herriman, who also happens to play Manson in Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.