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LMGI COMPASS
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Summer 2021
It was 1997 when David and Jack Fincher fi rst began pitching
the project around town, but the twosome quickly hit a stumbling
block—likely due to David's insistence that the fi lm be shot in black-
and-white, a vision that was not embraced by the top studio brass.
They were turned down everywhere, and with little hope of moving
the project forward, pre-production ground to a halt.
A Fortuitous Pairing
Around that same time Doyle, who was by then married with two
kids, had turned his back on features.
"Features just take away most of your personal time," he says. "I
mean, it's not news to anyone reading the Compass, but 60- to 90-
hour weeks for months at a time, sometimes far away from family,
are the norm." The hours were taking a personal toll, and Doyle
wanted to be able to work closer to home more often.
He focused on getting in-town commercials only, but less than
a year later, the plan to stick closer to home began to fall away as
bigger national and international commercials began to call … and
it just so happened that on a few of them, he was scouting for none
other than David Fincher.
"Before I knew it, I was averaging 250-plus days a year on
commercials into the early 2000s," Doyle says. "Then, after my
marriage failed in 2003, I found myself in need of a cathartic journey."
A pivot back to features was just what the doctor ordered. By
diving deep into larger and more challenging projects, Doyle was
able to focus on moving forward.
As if on cue, David Fincher came calling again. "He made me an
offer I couldn't refuse, to go on the road scouting for a movie he
ended up not making called The Lookout," Doyle says, "and that
work led directly to my working with him on The Curious Case of
Benjamin Button."
Bill would spend nearly the entire four-year period between 2004
and 2008 on Button.
The Golden Age in the Digital Age
Obviously, with the rise of streamers, the movie business has
changed, but many forget that it was David Fincher who led the
charge with Netfl ix. Fincher produced and directed a large portion
of their fi rst-ever original series, House of Cards. That series, which
debuted in 2013, would go on to run for six seasons and garner a host
of nominations and wins. Fincher himself was Emmy nominated and
won.
He would return to Netfl ix in 2016 with a new series, Mindhunter,
which, like House of Cards before it, went on to receive a number of
Emmy nominations over its two seasons.
Mindhunter would be the fi rst time Doyle would work with
Fincher and his producing partner Ceán Chaffi n in a new role. In
addition to being the SLM for the series, Doyle would function as
associate producer. Doyle had just completed work as a production
supervisor on Batman v Superman and relished the opportunity to
step up as part of Fincher's team.
Of the connection between his work as location manager and
