Mindhunter has been gone for nearly seven years, and the questions have never stopped. Now Netflix’s own boss has weighed in. Speaking at an event in New Delhi hosted by The Indian Express, co-CEO Ted Sarandos was asked which project he wished had gotten a follow-up.
He didn’t hesitate, joking that his answer wasn’t a part two but a part three he wishes they had made. Sarandos named David Fincher‘s Mindhunter, sharing that they always anticipated a third season. Here’s what Sarandos thinks happened to the show (via Collider):
We always anticipated there would be a third season, and he got very busy making a film. And David is an unbelievably meticulous creator, so he couldn’t do two things at the same time, and he certainly didn’t want to short-change either one. So it just got pushed off and pushed off. I would have loved to have seen a third season of Mindhunter.
For those who need a refresher, Mindhunter ran for two seasons between 2017 and 2019. Created by Joe Penhall and executive produced by Fincher, it followed FBI agents Holden Ford and Bill Tench in the late 1970s as they interviewed imprisoned killers and effectively invented criminal profiling.
Jonathan Groff and Holt McCallany led the cast alongside Anna Torv. Season 2 ended with clear threads left dangling, and they’ve stayed that way ever since.
Ted Sarandos Doesn’t Blame High Budget for Mindhunter Season 3
For years, the accepted explanation was money. That version came from David Fincher himself, not from Netflix. Back in 2020, Fincher told Vulture that the show was expensive relative to how many people watched it, and that he didn’t think a third season could be made for less than the second cost.
He shared, “I honestly don’t think we’re going to be able to do it for less than I did Season 2. And on some level, you have to be realistic about dollars have to equal eyeballs.” He returned to the same point in a 2023 conversation with Forbes, saying he was proud of both seasons but acknowledging, “In the eyes of Netflix, we didn’t attract enough of an audience to justify such an investment.”
He was careful not to be bitter about it, crediting the streamer for taking the initial risk and for letting him make Mank and The Killer on his own terms.
Sarandos tells it differently. In his version, the delay wasn’t about the balance sheet at all. It was about scheduling and about the kind of filmmaker Fincher is. Sarandos framed it as a case of a meticulous director who simply couldn’t split himself between a film and a series without one of them suffering.
Notably, he never brought up the budget once. Whether that’s the full picture or a gentler way of describing the same situation is up for debate, but it does shift the narrative.
Will David Fincher Return for Mindhunter Season 3?
David Fincher | Credits: Raffi Asdourian, licensed under CCA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Realistically, David Fincher has already called the project dead, and nothing Sarandos said this week changes that. A CEO expressing regret isn’t the same as a greenlight, and there’s no indication anyone is actively developing a third season.
Fincher also has no shortage of work. He has stayed with Netflix for over a decade, and his next release is The Adventures of Cliff Booth, starring Brad Pitt, which the streamer is putting in theatres later this year. What Sarandos offers is a bit of hope for fans. This is the most encouraging thing anyone at Netflix has said about Mindhunter in years.
Do you still want a Mindhunter Season 3? Let us know in the comments below!
The first two seasons are now available for streaming on Netflix.
This post belongs to FandomWire and first appeared on FandomWire
