Seven (often stylized as Se7en) is a 1995 American crime thriller film directed by David Fincher and written by Andrew Kevin Walker. It stars Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman, with Gwyneth Paltrow and John C. McGinley in supporting roles. Set in an unnamed, crime-ridden city, the narrative follows disenchanted, nearly retired Detective Lieutenant William Somerset (Freeman) and his newly transferred partner David Mills (Pitt) as they try to stop a serial killer from committing a series of murders based on the seven deadly sins.
Walker, an aspiring writer, based Seven on his experiences of moving from a suburban setting to New York City during a period of rising crime and drug addiction in the late 1980s. An Italian film company optioned his script, but following financial difficulties, the rights were sold to New Line Cinema. Studio executives were opposed to the script's bleak conclusion, insisting on a more mainstream and optimistic outcome. Fincher, determined to re-establish himself after a career setback with his directorial debut Alien 3 (1992), was mistakenly sent Walker's original script and, convinced of its merit, committed to directing the project if the original ending remained intact. Principal photography took place in Los Angeles between December 1994 and March 1995, on a $33–34million budget.
Seven garnered middling test audience results and was not predicted to perform well due to its violent and mature content. However, it grossed $327million worldwide, becoming a sleeper hit and the seventh highest-grossing film of the year. Contemporaneous reviews were generally positive, praising the performances of the central cast and the ending. Seven revitalized Fincher's career and helped Pitt move from roles based on his appearance to more serious, dramatic roles.
In the years since its release, the critical reception has been more positive. The film has inspired a number of television series and films with its aesthetic, music, and premise. Its title sequence, which depicts the killer preparing for his actions in the film, is considered an important design innovation that sparked a renewed interest in title design, while the film's twist ending has been named as one of the most shocking and unforgettable in cinematic history.
Plot
In a city overcome with violent crime and corruption, disillusioned police Detective Lieutenant William Somerset is one week from retirement. He is partnered with David Mills, a young, short-tempered, idealistic detective who recently relocated to the city with his wife, Tracy.
On Monday, Somerset and Mills investigate an obese man who was forced to eat until his stomach burst, killing him. The detectives find the word "gluttony" written on a wall. Somerset, considering the case too extreme for his last investigation, asks to be reassigned, but his request is denied. The following day, another victim, who had been forced to cut a pound of flesh from his body, is found; the crime scene is marked "greed". Clues at the scene lead Somerset and Mills to the sloth victim, a drug-dealing pederast whom they find emaciated and restrained to a bed. Photographs reveal the victim was restrained for precisely one year. Somerset surmises the murders are based on the Christian concept of the seven deadly sins.
Tracy invites Somerset to share supper with her and Mills, helping the detectives overcome their mutual hostility. On Friday, Tracy meets privately with Somerset because she has no other acquaintances in the city. She reveals her unhappiness at moving there, especially after learning she is pregnant, and believes the city is an unfit place to raise a child. Somerset sympathizes with Tracy, having persuaded his former girlfriend to abort their child for similar reasons and regretting it ever since. He advises Tracy to inform Mills of the pregnancy only if she intends to keep the child.
A remark by Mills inspires Somerset to research libraries for anyone checking out books based on the seven deadly sins, leading the pair to the apartment of a man known only as John Doe. Unexpectedly, Doe returns home and is pursued by Mills. Doe incapacitates him by striking him with a tire iron and holds him at gunpoint, but chooses to leave him alive and flees. The police investigate the apartment, finding hundreds of notebooks and photographs of his victims; the cache includes images of Somerset and Mills by a person they believed was an intrusive journalist at the sloth crime scene. Doe calls the apartment and speaks of his admiration for Mills.
On Saturday, Somerset and Mills investigate the fourth victim, lust, a prostitute who had been raped with a custom-made, bladed strap-on by a man held at gunpoint. The following day, the pride victim is found: a model whom Doe had facially disfigured. Unable to live without her beauty, she killed herself.
As Somerset and Mills return to the police station, Doe arrives covered in blood and surrenders himself. He threatens to plead insanity at his trial, potentially escaping punishment, unless Mills and Somerset escort him to an undisclosed location where they will find the envy and wrath victims. During the drive, Doe says he believes God has chosen him to send a message about the ubiquity of sin and society's apathy towards it. He is without remorse, believing the murders will force society to pay attention to him.
Doe leads the detectives to a remote location outside the city, where a delivery van approaches. Somerset intercepts the vehicle, whose driver was instructed to deliver a package to Mills at this specific time and location. He is horrified at the package's contents and tells Mills to put down his gun.
Doe reveals he himself represents envy because he envied Mills's life with Tracy and implies the package contains her severed head. He urges Mills to become wrath, telling him Tracy begged for her life and that of her unborn child, and takes pleasure in realizing Mills was unaware of her pregnancy. Despite Somerset's pleas, Mills, distraught and enraged, shoots Doe dead, completing Doe's plan. Police remove the catatonic Mills, and Somerset tells his captain he will "be around". Somerset says in voiceover: "Ernest Hemingway once wrote: 'The world is a fine place, and worth fighting for.' I agree with the second part."
Cast
Brad Pitt as David Mills: A well-meaning but impulsive homicide detective Morgan Freeman as William Somerset: A veteran police Detective Lieutenant disillusioned with his job Gwyneth Paltrow as Tracy Mills: Detective Mills' lonesome wife Richard Roundtree as Martin Talbot: The district attorney R. Lee Ermey as the police captain: The detectives' grizzled superior John C. McGinley as California: A SWAT team leader Kevin Spacey as John Doe: A serial killer inspired by the seven deadly sins
Seven also features Julie Araskog as Mrs. Gould, John Cassini as Officer Davis, Reg E. Cathey as Doctor Santiago, Peter Crombie as Doctor O'Neil, Richard Portnow as Doctor Beardsley, Richard Schiff as Mark Swarr, and Mark Boone Junior as a "greasy FBI man". Hawthorne James appears as George, the library night guard, Michael Massee portrays "man in massage parlor booth", Leland Orser plays "crazed man in massage parlor" forced to kill the "lust" victim, Pamala Tyson portrays a thin vagrant outside Doe's apartment, and Richmond Arquette plays Doe's delivery man.
Doe's victims include: Bob Mack as gluttony, a morbidly obese man who is force-fed until his stomach bursts; Gene Borkan as greed victim Eli Gould, a criminal attorney who is forced to cut off his own flesh; and Michael Reid MacKay as the sloth victim Theodore "Victor" Allen, a drug dealer and child abuser. Cat Mueller portrays the lust victim, a sex worker who is impaled with a bladed sex toy, and Heidi Schanz appears as model Rachel Slade, pride, whom Doe disfigures. Writer Andrew Kevin Walker makes a cameo appearance as a corpse Somerset investigates during the film's opening scene; Freeman's son Alfonso appears as a fingerprint technician; and columnist George Christy portrays the police department janitor scraping Somerset's name from his door.
Production Writing In 1986, aspiring screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker moved from suburban Pennsylvania to New York City and experienced culture shock while living in a city undergoing significant increases in crime and drug abuse. While working as a sales assistant at Tower Records in 1991, Walker began writing a spec script titled Seven, set in an unnamed, bleak city inspired by his "depressing" time in New York. Walker said, "it's true that if I hadn't lived there I probably wouldn't have written Seven..." Film studios were eager for high concept spec scripts—simple, succinct ideas that could be easily marketed to audiences. Walker believed his thriller about police officers pursuing a serial killer inspired by the seven deadly sins would attract attention and help launch his professional writing career.
Walker deliberately left aspects of the narrative open to interpretation to avoid invalidating the audience's own conclusions. He also wanted to subvert expectations and leave viewers feeling "violated and exhausted" by the ending. According to Walker, "there's lots of evil out there, and you're not always going to get the satisfaction of having any sort of understanding of why that is. That's one of the things that scares people the most about serial killers". In developing the killer, Walker drew on his experiences walking through the city and witnessing crimes and sins openly around him, which led him to consider a character who deliberately fixated on such behavior. He had Doe surrender to the police to deny both the characters and audience the expected satisfaction of his capture, opting instead to leave them in discomfort leading up to the finale.
In the early 1990s, Italian company , under manager Phyllis Carlyle, optioned the script. Walker received the minimum fee permitted by the Writers Guild of America (WGA), which was enough for him to quit his job, move to Los Angeles, and dedicate himself to developing Seven.
Development
To lead the project, Penta Film hired director Jeremiah S. Chechik, known for his recent success directing the comedy film National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (1989) and seeking a more serious project. Chechik and Penta Film demanded several script changes, including removal of the bleak ending in which Tracy's severed head is delivered in a box. Faced with the prospect of being replaced or the project being cancelled, Walker acquiesced and wrote a more conventional ending in which the detectives confront Doe in a church described as either burning or burned out. In the revised script, Doe embodies envy and kills Mills before being shot dead by Somerset, while the pregnant Tracy leaves the city. In a 2017 interview, Walker said he felt he was ruining the script and should have left the project. He ultimately wrote thirteen drafts to satisfy the studio's demands.
As the script option neared expiration and Penta Film faced financial difficulties—culminating in the company's dissolution in 1994—the rights were sold to producer Arnold Kopelson, who subsequently brought the project to New Line Cinema. Chechik left the project, and Guillermo del Toro and Phil Joanou were approached as possible replacements; Joanou declined because he considered the story too bleak.