Frank or Francis

[modage]

It's not the only Kaufman project in the mix. I'm told that he is also looking for financing on Frank Or Francis, a script he wrote and means to direct. The film chronicles a volatile back and forth between a film director (Frank) and an online blogger (Francis), who takes delight in berating his cinematic talent. The project has come unglued from Sony Pictures, and it's being shopped to financiers. I've heard it will be star-cast, with names like Adaptation's Meryl Streep being talked about for roles.

http://www.deadline.com/2011/03/megan-ellisons-annapurna-pictures-close-to-acquiring-reteam-project-from-charlie-kaufman-and-spike-jonze/

[MacGuffin]

Charlie Kaufman Attaches Steve Carell, Jack Black And Nicolas Cage To 'Frank Or Francis'
BY MIKE FLEMING | Deadline

BREAKING: Charlie Kaufman is attaching Jack Black and Nicolas Cage and is talking to Steve Carell to Frank Or Francis, the next film Kaufman will direct. Kaufman's projects are always shrouded in mystery (sometimes even after you've seen them), but they are always compelling and this one's gearing up for a 2012 start. After writing scripts that included Being John Malkovich and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Kaufman made his helming debut on his script Synecdoche, New York.

Cage previously starred in the Kaufman-scripted Adaptation, the adaptation of Susan Orlean's The Orchid Thief. Black, who most recently starred in the indie Bernie, sort of worked with Kaufman in that he did script work on Kung Fu Panda 2. and Carell (who's about to open in Crazy, Stupid, Love) is working with Kaufman for the first time. Kaufman, Black and Carell are repped by WME, Cage by CAA. The pic is being mounted as an indie that's our to financiers and will be produced by Anthony Bregman.

[Pubrick]

Kaufman did script work of Kung Fu Panda 2? How did they even find that out? That's the real  story. Is he that hard up for cash?

Great now I'm going to have to see a non Pixar animated film.

[Fernando]

Kaufman did script work of Kung Fu Panda 2? How did they even find that out? That's the real  story. Is he that hard up for cash?

Great now I'm going to have to see a non Pixar animated film.

dont waste your time, I liked the first, it was funny and had some charm, #2 was solely made for $$$ and it shows, boring story, boring action, boring jokes...

[Tictacbk]

...and Carell (who's about to open in Crazy, Stupid, Love) is working with Kaufman for the first time.

Technically they both worked on the short-lived brilliant sketch show The Dana Carvey Show.  So...take that Deadline.

[72teeth]

Did most of us read this...?

I'm still not at all tired of this guy's meta business, and this news only gets me more giddy... Human Nature's my favorite Kaufman, if you need explanation.

[MacGuffin]

Charlie Kaufman Confirms That Next Directorial Effort 'Frank Or Francis' Is A Full-On Musical
Source: The Playlist

When a screenwriter is admired, it is often based on how well he or she can construct a story (Robert Towne,  William Goldman) or write dialogue (Aaron Sorkin, David Mamet), but Charlie Kaufman is the rare screenwriter who is revered for the strength of his ideas. He certainly feels like the first writing auteur, and it's appropriate that he began directing his own scripts with 2008's "Synecdoche, New York" (That's not to disparage the great films Spike Jonze and Michel Gondry made out of Kaufman scripts, although as far as "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind" goes, the less said, the better. Director George Clooney and Kaufman infamously butted heads over that film.)

Kaufman is gearing up for his second directorial effort, "Frank or Francis," a movie which the Oscar-winning screenwriter has described as being about "online film criticism" in the "broadest possible sense." We also knew that Steve Carell, Nicolas Cage, and Jack Black are attached to the film. But, in a recent BAFTA Screenwriters Lecture, Kaufman gave a truly inspiring/gloriously uncommon speech about writing, explaining that it was the first speech he'd ever given. In addition to discussing screenwriting in general, Kaufman revealed that 'Frank or Francis' is an all-out musical, not a film with musical elements, as had been previously reported. Kaufman said, "I always try to do something different, but I'm a person with a very specific existence and a very specific background... This thing that I just wrote that will hopefully get made is a musical, and I've never done that before, so I did it."

We read the script in September and described it as "a deliciously good and contemptuous (though self-aware) screed/send-up of the film industry." In Kaufman's lecture, he says about the writing process, "Let's not worry about failure. Failure is a badge of honor. It means you risked failure."

It's a great lecture and is worth checking out for anyone trying to create art. As for 'Frank or Francis,' we were hoping it might make it before the end of next year, but with filming yet to start, 2013 is looking more likely at this point. Expect something very different.


http://guru.bafta.org/charlie-kaufman-screenwriters-lecture-video

[MacGuffin]

Kate Winslet and Catherine Keener Join Charlie Kaufman's Frank or Francis
Source: NY Mag

Charlie Kaufman has already lined up an impressive cast of actors for his wild new movie Frank or Francis — Steve Carell, Jack Black, Nicolas Cage, and Kevin Kline have long been attached to the project — and now he's added two name actresses, both of whom did some of their career-best work with a Kaufman script. Vulture hears that Kate Winslet and Catherine Keener have come aboard Frank or Francis; the former was nominated for an Oscar for the Kaufman-penned Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, while the latter got her first Oscar nod thanks to Kaufman's script for Being John Malkovich. Both of those screenplays were directed by other people, but Kaufman will be helming his own work for Frank or Francis, a very meta musical comedy about a director (Carell) who becomes obsessed with the message board commenter (Black) disparaging his movies on a Hollywood website. And though Kaufman's script is positively scathing when it comes to the Academy Awards (Cage plays a washed-up actor who serves as the emcee of the event), we should note that with the new additions to his cast, he's now got an ensemble that includes three Oscar winners and can boast a bounty of eleven total nominations. Not bad!

[malkovich]

Just when I thought I couldn't get any more excited for this.

[socketlevel]

Kaufman did script work of Kung Fu Panda 2? How did they even find that out? That's the real  story. Is he that hard up for cash?

Great now I'm going to have to see a non Pixar animated film.

I know this post is old, but I never knew this. I wonder how he helped out cuz the first one was way better.

[MacGuffin]

Elizabeth Banks Joins Charlie Kaufman's 'Frank or Francis' (Exclusive)
The actress joins Jack Black, Nicolas Cage and Kevin Kline in the musical satire about Hollywood.
Source: THR

Elizabeth Banks, who stars in this weekend's Man on a Ledge with Sam Worthington, has joined the star-studded cast of Frank or Francis, Charlie Kaufman's musical satire about Hollywood.

Banks joins a roll call that includes Jack Black, Nicolas Cage, Steve Carell, Catherine Keener and Kevin Kline in a story that follows a battle of wills between Frank, an intellectual film director (Carell) and Francis, an online blogger (Black) who still lives with his parents and who delights in attacking the other man's films.

Cage plays an actor who is famous for his high-concept films, while Kline will play the director of the world's top-grossing movie as well as that character's brother, who turns into an animatronic head. (Yes, it's a Charlie Kaufman film.)

Banks will play a highly-regarded actress making formulaic comedy bombs who is having an affair with Carell's Frank. 

Anthony Bregman of A Likely Story is producing.

[MacGuffin]

Charlie Kaufman's Ambitious Meta-Musical 'Frank Or Francis' Is Not Dead, But It Has Been Postponed
Source: Playlist

The film blogosphere loves screenwriter/director Charlie Kaufman, and with good reason. His mindbending screenplays and films ("Synecdoche, New York," "Adaptation," "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind") are surreal, challenging, hilariously bizarre, profound and moving, so he is beloved by many cinephiles who value something other than the cookie-cutter norm. Consequently, when quotes from actress Elizabeth Banks started spreading today about the viability and potential death of Kaufman's next project "Frank Or Francis" -- an ambitious satire of Hollywood set to music, where a film director feuds with a blogger -- people understandably got worried.

"We didn't get to shoot that movie," Banks said when asked about the status of the film while doing press for her current film,  "People Like Us." "It was ready to go, and, as many movies do, it fell apart at the last minute." This echoes comments that would-be "Frank or Francis" co-star Kevin Kline said when he suggested the film had fallen apart early in 2012 and was still looking for financing. "It's difficult to talk about because they keep moving the start date," Kline said in April. "I haven't talked to Charlie Kaufman in four or five months. I'm waiting for a start date before I take it seriously."

In "Frank or Francis"  Steve Carell was set to play Frank, a pretentious, charlatan of a filmmaker and Jack Black would have played Francis, his nemesis in the form of an online commenter who tears down the director at every turn (more details of this Hollywood send-up are here). Nicolas Cage was set to play Alan Modell, a fat-suit-wearing comedian who is also known as The Emcee due to his Oscar-hosting duties and the cast would have been rounded out by Banks (who replaced Kate Winslet despite reports that continue to include her in the cast), Catherine Keener, Kevin Kline, Paul Reubens and Jacki Weaver.

So is the project dead? Not quite, but it doesn't seem to be moving forward either. Reps for Charlie Kaufman will only allow that the project has been "postponed," and that makes complete sense given the amount of work that Kaufman has moved on to recently, including his first novel, an HBO series and the adaptation of the sci-fi young adult novel, "Chaos Walking" for Lionsgate.

We described the screenplay a few months ago as "a deliciously good and contemptuous (though self-aware) screed/send-up of the film industry." It's brilliant, monumentally wacky and out-there and it would be sad if this wildly ambitious picture didn't make it to the screen. Evidently we'll have to wait, but who knows for how long. Optimistically, we'll point you to "Lawless," a picture that fell apart in its early incarnation (with actors like Ryan Gosling and Amy Adams mooted as members of its cast), but came back to life when Annapurna Pictures decided to pony up and fund it (it was met with good press at Cannes earlier this year and comes out in late August of this year via The Weinstein Company).

Also, let's note. Banks herself still holds out hope. "I honestly don't know where that film is at," she said. "We were supposed to make it sooner, but it's been pushed. I think they're waiting for everybody's lives to come back together...I don't really know anything about it." Megan Ellison, your move?