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Zodiac is a 2007 American film directed by David Fincher and based on Robert Graysmith's non-fiction books Zodiac and Zodiac Unmasked. The Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros. joint production stars Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo, and Robert Downey Jr.. Zodiac tells the story of the people involved in the hunt for a notorious serial killer known as "Zodiac", who haunted the San Francisco Bay Area during the late 1960s, leaving several victims in his wake and taunting police with his letters and ciphers mailed to newspapers. The case remains one of San Francisco's most famous unsolved crimes. 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 was used to shoot an entire Hollywood feature film. Reviews for the film were highly positive. It did not perform strongly at the North American box office, grossing only USD $33 million. However, it performed better in other parts of the world, earning $51 million, to bring its box office total to $84 million, with a budget of $65 million spent on its production.