Zodiac, a Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros. joint production, is a 2007 film directed by David Fincher based on Robert Graysmith's two non-fiction books about the Zodiac Killer (Zodiac and Zodiac Unmasked). It stars Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo, and Robert Downey Jr.. A notorious serial killer known only as "the Zodiac" haunted the San Francisco Bay Area during the late 1960s. Leaving several victims in his wake and taunting police with his ciphers and letters written to the San Francisco Chronicle and other newspapers, the Zodiac was never caught. This film tells the story of the notorious killings, standing to this day as one of San Francisco's most infamous unsolved crimes and of the men whose lives and careers were built and destroyed around the hunt for the killer.
Fincher, screenwriter James Vanderbilt and producer Brad Fischer spent 18 months conducting their own investigation and research into the Zodiac murders. During filming, Fincher employed the digital Thomson Viper Filmstream camera to shoot the film. This was the first time this camera has been used to shoot an entire Hollywood feature film. Reviews for the film have been highly positive, and though it has not performed strongly at the North American box office, it has performed slightly better in other parts of the world with a box office total of $80,280,083 worldwide, slightly above its $75-million budget.