Jeez, Justin Timberlake sure isn’t f**king around when it comes to his big musical comeback. For his first music video back on the scene, he’s enlisting some pretty A-List help. David Fincher — you know, the guy behind The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Social Network, and Fight Club — will be directing the actual-real-not-lyric-version video for “Suit & Tie,” The Playlist confirms.
You may remember that Fincher got his start in music videos, and is famously responsible for Madonna’s iconic 1990 “Vogue” video. But he hasn’t dabbled in the medium since he directed the video for Nine Inch Nails’ “Only” in 2005. Despite his eight year hiatus, we expect big things from Fincher in his return to music videos. After all, the following seven videos all prove that no movie director is too big to return to the shorter, more YouTube-friendly form.
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Following his smashing success with 2009’s (500) Days of Summer, Marc Webb helmed Green Day’s “Last of the American Girls” video in 2010.
After Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001) earned him a cult following, John Cameron Mitchell brought his artistic vision to Bright Eyes‘ touching “First Day of My Life” video in 2006.
In another movie star music video mashup, Bennett Miller teamed up with Scarlett Johansson for her 2008 video for “Falling Down.” While Moneyball was still on Miller’s horizon, he’d already scored notability with Capote (2005).
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A year before Milk, Gus Van Sant directed the Red Hot Chili Peppers‘ video for “Desecration Smile” (2007). Of course, Van Sant already had a number of hits (including Good Will Hunting and Finding Forrester) to his name.
Unlike Fincher, Darren Aronofsky didn’t try his hand at music video directing until he was established in movies. After Requiem for a Dream, The Wrestler, and Black Swan, Aronofsky directed the video for Lou Reed and Metallica’s “The View” (2011).
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Like Fincher and “Vogue,” it’s pretty common knowledge at this point that Martin Scorsese directed Michael Jackson’s “Bad” in 1987. But despite this being 26 years ago, Scorsese was in no way a newbie director. Taxi Driver (1976), Raging Bull (1980) and The Color of Money (1986) (among others) were already behind him.
Even while he loaded up on feature film accolades (for movies such as Being John Malkovitch, Adaptation, and Where the Wild Things Are) Spike Jonze never really left his music video roots. Most recently, he took the reins of LCD Soundsystem’s “Drunk Girls,” Arcade Fire’s “The Suburbs,” The Beastie Boys’ “Don’t Play No Game That I Can’t Win,” and Jay-Z and Kanye West’s “Otis” (below).
Follow Abbey Stone on Twitter @abbeystone
[Photo Credit: JFXimages/WENN]
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