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In a gloomy third-floor study tucked away in a classic New Orleans mansion, oblivious to the rain that's lashing the windows, David Fincher is editing his sixth film, Zodiac. It's the story of the serial murders that plagued the Bay Area — and in particular, two San Francisco Chronicle journalists and a pair of cops — during the late '60s and early '70s.

Glimmering on his laptop is a scene featuring inspectors Dave Toschi and Bill Armstrong, played by Mark Ruffalo and Anthony Edwards, pleading for a search warrant, and Fincher pretty well knows it's headed for the director's cut on DVD.

He's trying to trim another five minutes from the film, which when he awoke this morning was clocking in at two hours and 38 minutes, and his deadline to decide what to cut is near. Meanwhile, some 20 feet away on the other side of the door is a cast and crew of more than 100 people, who, once the lighting is reset, will be waiting on Fincher's legendarily explicit instructions as they shoot a feature adaptation of an 85-year-old short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald called The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

When Fincher looks up, however — his watchful eyes widened like those of his kindred nocturnal creature, the owl — his question is unexpectedly general and ruminative: "Do you think people are gonna come see our movie?" He seems to actually want an answer. And the query is a bit of a stumper.