David Fincher has spoken with MTV.com’s Kurt Loder about some future projects — an Elliot Ness movie, a possible remake of a ’70s Michael Sarrazin movie with one of the worst titles in history — The Reincarnation of Peter Proud — and a World War II film that Robert Towne is writing (which Towne forgot to tell me about yesterday when I asked him what’s doing in terms of new projects)

Loder: “You obviously have an affinity for the serial-killer genre. I’d imagine you don’t want to make a career of it, but you are considering making a film version of Torso, aren’t you?”

Fincher: I’m interested in that [but] I’m not interested in the serial killer thing, I’m interested in Eliot Ness. I’m interested in the de-mythologizing of Eliot Ness. Because, you know, The Untouchables was only two or three years of the Eliot Ness story. There’s a whole other, much more sinister downside to it. And so that’s of interest to me. We want to make it the Citizen Kane of cop movies.

“I also want to make a CG animated movie. And I’ve been talking about doing a remake of a movie I really liked in the ’70s, The Reincarnation of Peter Proud. Ever see that? And there’s a World War II movie that Robert Towne is writing that I really love. All kinds of stuff.”

If Fincher eventually does the Peter Proud remake, he will have made two films with fanciful lame-ass male names in their titles — “Benjamin Button” (as in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) and P.P. The titles are so hateful they’re probably going to work as roadblocks on some level. If I were Paramount, I would call the Brad Pitt movie Button — a little twee but preferable to the original F. Scott Fitzgerald title.