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Zodiac Killer Project is an upcoming documentary film directed by Charlie Shackleton, known for directing documentary films such as Beyond Clueless (2014), Copy Cat (2015), Fear Itself (2015), etc.
Releasing on November 21, 2025, in the United States, the meta-documentary deconstructs the true crime genre by detailing the film he failed to make. Shackleton changed the concept after a rights dispute prevented him from adapting a book written by former California Highway Patrol Officer, Lyndon Lafferty.
Zodiac Killer Project features Charlie Shackleton himself as the director, narrator, and sole on-screen presence, using his own improvised voiceover over long, static shots of Bay Area landscapes. He presents a self-aware critique of real crime's familiar strategies and its basic ethical issues by describing the environments, devices, and dramatic tropes he would have used.
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Zodiac Killer Project trailer, premiere details and reviews
Shackleton's documentary Zodiac Killer Project won the NEXT Innovator Award, at its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on January 27, 2025. While the film's release date is not far enough, it has already earned positive reviews from the critics.
In the review aggregator, Rotten Tomatoes, the film has received 88% positive reviews from 40 critics, where the website's consensus states:
"Director Charlie Shackleton rescues victory from the jaws of defeat in Zodiac Killer Project, a revelatory rumination on filmmaking and the overindulgences of the true crime genre."
The film also competed on Stockholm Documentary Competition at the 2025 Stockholm International Film Festival held on November 5, 2025.
Director Charlie Shackleton on making the Zodiac Killer Project
Charlie Shackleton explained that he had a "love-hate relationship" with true crime, initially seeing the Zodiac Killer Project as a commercial opportunity. When the rights fell through, he reframed the film as a way to deconstruct the genre's formulas and ethical lapses. In a video interview with TIME magazine, he stated:
"I had a sort of general love-hate relationship with true crime. It seemed like the way to make something that would genuinely interest me but could also potentially be quite commercial."
The concept for Zodiac Killer Project originated from casual conversations Shackleton had with friends, like those typically held in a pub. Although a legal obstacle prevented him from adapting Lafferty's book, Shackleton was unable to abandon the idea. He added:
"I started from thinking about how it would be to have me tell it as I had already so many times to friends. But obviously I was working within the restriction of not being able to adapt the book. Not being able to have any of the content of the thing. So what was left without the content? It was just like the shape and the feelings that I was convinced people would have felt if only I could have done the thing."
Shackleton's upcoming project's idea came after he discovered The Zodiac Killer Cover-Up: The Silenced Badge (2012), a 2012 book written by Lyndon Lafferty. This book focuses on a suspect Lafferty named George Russell Tucker and documents the alleged obstruction of Lafferty's attempts to prosecute him. However, Shackleton was ultimately denied the adaptation rights by Lafferty's family.
These disputes came to an end in August 2022 when Charlie Shackleton received an email stating that negotiations for the rights to the book had fallen through while he was in Vallejo, California, scouting locations for the planned true crime documentary.
Stay tuned for more updates.
