Among Fincher's pet projects are Heavy Metal, Torso and a World War II movie that he wants to do with Robert Towne Brad Pitt.

BD: I don't know about that: there was some damn good acting in the '40s.

DF: Well, I look at it this way: It's kind of like Errol Flynn. He was a wonderful onscreen personality but it was indicative of physical types and physical expressions and wardrobing and posing and it was driven by [something external]. Certainly if there was anything internal going on for Robin Hood, it was whatever you wanted to see. So that's where I think performance capture is and at some point there will have to be Marlon Brando of the digital performance, where all of a sudden people will realize there's this whole other plane of existence.

BD: Or Robert Downey.

DF: Well, yeah, that's a good example. Before Iron Man, not to take anything away from Michael Keaton's Batman, which I think was spectacular, but, again, acting and performance are two different things. Acting is what you do; the performance is the thing that you make from the acting. And so many people confuse the two. When you look at Keaton's performance... First of all, what an uphill battle. Everybody thought: "Michael Keaton?! Are you out of your mind?! And then you saw it and you went, "Wow!" There was something about his mechanism and the way that he dramatizes what happens internally -- his frustrations -- that really works.

Again, this is all totally personal, but I look at Gary Oldman's performance in Batman Begins... I haven't seen a character in a "comicbook" movie quite like it. He's so good. Heath Ledger aside, and he did an amazing thing and deserves all the posthumous acclaim...

BD: But less is more with Oldman and he is so grounded in reality.

DF: Well, that's what I'm saying. By virtue of the moments they choose to make real -- and Oldman does this so well in Batman Begins -- all the miniatures and CG and train chases and rocket cars aside, you go: "Wait a minute! This guy seems like a real guy!" Again, I love Heath Ledger, but if you really want to see someone in a comicbook, I think Gary Oldman is the one.

BD: Well, he's playing Bob Cratchit, Marley and Tiny Tim in A Christmas Carol.

DF: That'll be amazing.

BD: And what do you think about all this stereoscopic hoopla?

DF: I think... it's like crack. If you can create enough of a need, this is a great way to hold on to copyrights. I don't know. It certainly necessitates a new language. I just don't know whether... I mean, I can't think of 10% of the movies I've seen as needing to be in 3-D. I guess Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back in 3-D would be pretty balls out.

BD: Obviously Avatar will be worth the effort.

DF: Oh, yeah. I think if you gave me the original opportunity to see Terminator in 3-D, I would do it, but it wouldn't negate having the 2-D version. You know, that guy's worth seeing if you only had one eye.

BD: And what do you have going next?

DF: Nothing, man. I've got four months of sleep, but just try and wake me up.

BD: Are you still trying to get Heavy Metal off the ground?

DF: You know, when you tell people that you want to make R-rated animation for teenage boys, oddly enough, they don't flock to put up cash for it. But, it is what it is.

BD: And Torso, the Eliot Ness/serial killer movie?

DF: Well, we're trying to find out what it's really gonna cost to do: get a real budget, because internal budgets that are done at studios have a different agenda. "Tell us what the absolute minimum is?" As opposed to: "What is it really gonna cost to pull this off and make it something that people are gonna want to battle parking and lines and babysitters for? That's a different equation comic book I remember on Panic Room, they had an internal budget of $22 million, and we were like, "Well, that's true: you could do it for that if you were doing it like Assault on Precinct 13, but I don't think you want to market that movie."

BD: So what's going to draw us to Torso?

DF: Well, to me, I love the idea of this self-righteous American heroic crusader and all of the questionable shit that he does in the name of his own... And Eliot Ness was a very interesting and very flawed and sometimes scary guy. But he meant well. But he did some really bizarre things. Also, we think we know the guy from The Untouchables. But that ended in '28 and then he goes off to Cleveland and really tears it up.

And I've got a beautiful World War II story that I want to do with Robert Towne and Brad Pitt [based on the biography of Wendell Fertig, a civil engineer in the Philippines, who led a guerilla force in the Japanese-occupied island of Mindanao]. So who knows?

Bill Desowitz is senior editor of VFXWorld and AWN.