Gary Oldman plays Herman J. Mankiewicz as he races to complete the first draft of the ”Citizen Kane” script. Along the way, Mankiewicz, known throughout Hollywood as a charming but deeply cynical alcoholic, locks horns with Orson Welles over nearly every element of the film’s story. That feud that would continue beyond the film’s release as Mankiewicz believed Welles was trying to take credit for his work and spent the rest of his life resenting him for it.
”Mank” is more than 20 years in the making, as David Fincher’s father, Howard ”Jack” Fincher, wrote the screenplay back in the late 1990s. He passed away in 2003. The film marks Fincher’s return to feature filmmaking for the first time since his 2014 Oscar-nominated film ”Gone Girl,” having spent the last six years working on Netflix series like ”House of Cards” and ”Mindhunter.”