This, from an interview to promote Bernie:

I’m also excited for the new Charlie Kaufman movie, Frank or Francis. What’s it like working with Charlie, and can you tell us anything about your character?

We haven’t started formal rehearsals yet, but he’s an incredible guy. He’s had some ideas about what Francis is like and what he sounds like and what I should study. I can’t tell you much about the character though, sorry.

The screenplay satirizes Hollywood, which seems like a dangerous game to play for an actor. Were you tentative about getting involved?

No, I’m all for it! That’s what made me extra into it. It’s necessary and it’s profound. Our country is super celebrity-obsessed and the world, especially the United States, really needs a movie like this to examine our need to be famous. (Source)

The Age has an article on Judd Apatow and his new flick, The Five-Year Engagement. Aussie Jacki Weaver is in that film, and buried in the article you'll find this little nugget:

She's made 11 trips to the US in the past two years, ''none of which I've paid for'', she adds with a girlish giggle. She's made three movies and worked with Shirley MacLaine, Nicole Kidman and Robert De Niro.

There's a pilot for HBO in the can and a role in Charlie Kaufman's new film. The highlight of her Hollywood adventure so far has been playing De Niro's wife in The Silver Linings Playbook, due out later this year. ''That took some beating,'' she says. ''In fact I don't think it will ever be beaten.'' (Source)

indieWIRE speculates that the film is probably Frank or Francis.

Jack Black describes Frank or Francis to MTV News:

"[The script is] under lock and key. It is a musical," Black shared. "I will be singing. Everyone will be in fact. If you're in that movie you will be singing. There's no just regular talking it's all [singing]."

[...] "That might not be the case," he continued. "Don't quote me on that."

[...] "Erase that part. I gotta go back and read the script again. Maybe there is some regular talking mixed in. In fact, there is," he finished. (Source)

Here's a music video Anne Williamson created for Jon Brion's "Little Person," from Synecdoche, New York. I came across it today. I thought it was cute and sweet and stuff.

Lionsgate want to bring Patrick Ness' young adult book series, Chaos Walking, to the big screen... and according to Deadline, Charlie Kaufman will be adapting the first book, The Knife of Never Letting Go:

The Carnegie Medal winning book is set in a dystopian future with humans colonizing a distant earth-like planet. When an infection called the Noise suddenly makes all thought audible, privacy vanishes, chaos ensues, and a corrupt autocrat threatens to take control of the human settlements and wage war with the indigenous alien race. Only young Todd Hewitt holds the key to stopping planet wide-destruction. (Source)

WOW. Big news. Busy times ahead for Charlie, if all of these upcoming projects come to fruition. Frank or Francis, the untitled novel for Grand Central, maybe that "world leaders" film. (Or is the world leaders thing in fact a Jonze project, sans Charlie? I AM GETTING VERY CONFUSED.)

In Synecdoche, New York, there's a scene where Philip Seymour Hoffman checks the address list in an apartment building. One of the names on the list is "Capgras." Meanwhile, a few years back, when Charlie double-billed with the Coen Brothers in Carter Burwell's "Theater of the New Ear" "sound plays" project, and scheduling conflicts meant that the Coens were unable to stage their play in L.A., an unknown playwright named Francis Fregoli stepped up to the plate. Fregoli, it turned out, was Kaufman again, writing under a pseudonym.

There's a write-up on io9 which explains where those names come from. The article's called "Everyone Around You is An Impostor: Inside the Mind's Most Bizarre Delusions."

The first of the delusions, in which a person becomes convinced impostors have replaced their friends and family, is known as the Capgras delusion, named for the French psychiatrist Joseph Capgras who along with Jean Reboul-Lachaux first described the condition in 1923.

[...]

Leopoldo Fregoli was one of the greatest entertainers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. He perfected a style of performance known as quick-change, which is pretty much exactly what it sounds — he would switch costumes and characters during his stage shows so rapidly that it was suggested he actually required several other Fregolis for his act to be possible. And while that notion of hidden duplicates would fit right in with the delusions we've been discussing, that's not actually what won him his unlikely — and quite possibly unwanted — immortality in the annals of psychology. (Source)

More info at the link.

In an article headed Science Fiction and Fantasy Creators Who Became Their Own Genres, io9 list Charlie K. as a genre unto himself: Here's the opening:

Some people don't just create new worlds and super-memorable characters — they give life to their own genres. There are some creators of fantastical stories whose work is so distinctive, you have a pretty good sense what's going to happen when you pick up their work — and you're excited, because it's going to be a hell of a ride.

And here's Charlie's bit:

Kaufman wrote a string of movies that combined surrealism, broken characters and bitter humor, including Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. And then he started directing his own screenplays, with Synecdoche, New York and the forthcoming Frank or Francis. (And he's got a novel in the pipeline, about which nobody knows anything.) It's hard to pigeonhole Kaufman's work into a single genre (maybe Slipstream?) but everything he writes is instantly recognizable, from the depressed heroes to the strange plot devices to the habit of inserting a love story where you least expect it. (Source)

A few of the other folks who make the list: Joss Whedon, Kurt Vonnegut, Grant Morrison, Terry Gilliam.

While promoting his new film Darling Companion, Kevin Kline said a few words to the press about his role(s) in Frank or Francis, and why there's been a bit of a delay in filming. Via Collider:

Is the Charlie Kaufman film, Frank or Francis, your next project?

KLINE:  It could well be.  It depends.  It’s a huge cast, and getting everyone in the same place, at the same time, and the certain amount of money in place to make the film, is tough.  I’m just waiting for a start date.  The producer is actually the same producer for this film, and he’s very confident that it’s all going to come together shortly.

So, what will you do while you’re waiting?

KLINE:  I’m just going to go about my business of doing whatever.  I’m doing some Shakespeare this summer, briefly, and maybe another movie or something.  It depends.  I could get a call this afternoon saying we’re going to start in two weeks, on Frank or Francis.

Could you talk about your role in that movie?  There’s music in it, so will you be singing?

KLINE:  One of my characters sings.  I play three characters.  That sounds interesting, so I don’t want to disappoint you by giving you anymore details. (Source)

Pri Oono from Publisher's Weekly has some more info on Charlie's upcoming novel. YAY:

... Kaufman's debut book, it seems, will be more than meta enough for fans long accustomed to his unique movies: it is a novelization of the script for his 2002 film, Adaptation, which itself was based on Susan Orlean's book, The Orchid Thief. Clocking in at a whopping 2456 pages, the book details a midlist novelist's attempt to write the film tie-in for an Oscar-nominated movie.

"He's one of those writers who get paid to turn film scripts into novels," says Charlie, "but the film's release date is approaching, and he hasn't written a word of it because the script is kind of strange and unadaptable -- the script doesn't lend itself to a readable novel. So he kind of gets fed up and writes about his own struggle to write the novel, and in doing so, the novel becomes a huge, sprawling epic only tangentially linked to the actual film."

[...] why write a novel based on a film that was already based on a book? And why now? "I don't know," says Kaufman.

Two editions of Kaufman's novel will be available: the standard novel, and a fully illustrated, limited, deluxe pop-up version which will stand approximately three feet tall. Try putting that on your coffee table.

Grand Central Publishing estimates a release date during the first quarter of 2013. (Source)

Charlie's start in TV writing was on Chris Elliott's Get a Life! Now A.V. Club brings news that the entire series will finally be coming to DVD. Previously, only a handful of episodes were available.

The revelation was made by Elliott himself, who dropped the following while talking to A.V. Club contributor Will Harris for a soon-to-be-published interview—and unlike past assurances, Elliott sounds pretty confident:

“Get A Life is going to be coming out as a complete series on Shout Factory. I’m not entirely sure when—I think probably in the fall?—but, yes, it will be actually coming out…finally! At the end of April, we’re going to be doing the special features. Commentaries and that sort of stuff.”

As often lamented by fans of the surreal show—which boasted scripts from Bob Odenkirk and Charlie Kaufman, and had Elliott playing a dimwitted, insane, man-child paperboy who traveled through time, cared for vomiting aliens, and, with notable frequency, died—Get A Life has only seen release in various, out-of-print “best of” collections, with attempts to get the whole series out there repeatedly stymied by “suits,” in Elliott’s words. (Source)

Still no word on what it's called, what it's about, when we'll see it, or if it has even been written yet, but the New York Observer has a small interview with Charlie's editor at Grand Central, Ben Greenberg.

“I’ve been chasing after Charlie for years,” Mr. Greenberg told The Observer. “Without ever having spoken to him. It was just an idea.”

Grand Central snagged the novel in a pre-empt, after exclusive negotiations. (Mr. Kaufman is represented by Claudia Ballard at William Morris Endeavor, which also represents his screen work.)

[...] “It was just something that he wasn’t going to do until he wanted to do it,” he said. (Elliptical! Not unlike a Kaufman screenplay.) (Source)

  Mark Friedberg was the production designer on films for Wes Anderson, Ang Lee, Julie Taymor, Jim Jarmusch and Todd Haynes. He was also the designer on Synecdoche, New York. Friedberg delivered the first in a new series of master classes at the Museum of the Moving Image, and Capital New York have a report on the event. Synecdoche doesn't get a mention past the introductory paragraph, but you still might want to read the article:

His big break came when he was asked to pinch-hit for an absent crew member on New York Stories. “They needed these African masks for a set, hanging on the walls,” Friedberg said, “and they knew I was going home every night and painting, so they asked me to make them, and paid me extra for it. It was the first time I had actually gotten paid for something I had made.”

Soon, he started production designing for friends’ films, and eventually found himself talking to Ang Lee about the design for his 1997 The Ice Storm: “I came prepared for a job interview, but Ang said, ‘I was always curious about art history, but never got a chance to learn. Let’s talk about Cubism, because I think it might have something to do with this story.’ So I started talking about Cubism, and it turned into this amazing conversation about personalities shown from different angles, and how the ice is like a lens, and there’s no real eye contact.” (Source)

This is pretty major and pretty awesome. Deadline reports:

Screenwriter Charlie Kaufman is putting that cosmic mind of his toward his first book. Kaufman, whose scripts include Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Adaptation, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Human Nature and Being John Malkovich, has just closed a deal for his first novel for Grand Central Publishing, I’m told. The subject of the novel is being kept under wraps. (Source)

That's all we know.

I came to Charlie's work as a reader -- I was into his scripts before I'd seen his films. I'm much more of a reader than a film-goer. For years, now, there have been rumours and suggestions that Charlie would or should try writing a novel. This is gonna be very interestin' indeed, if it happens.

Thanks to Justin!

Jack Black is at the SXSW Film Festival promoting Bernie, and he chatted with indieWIRE about Frank or Francis. The whole article's worth a read, and it's brief, but here are snippets:

Black revealed he didn’t know how soon shooting was set to begin, but he characterized the film to The Playlist as an incisive portrait of celebrity culture.

“It’s really an incredible look at our entertainment-obsessed societ. [...] It’s the most original film about Hollywood that I’ve ever read. I love it and I’m very excited about it.”

[...]  “It’s a musical, but I don’t know how much of it will be sung and how much will just be spoken,” Black explained. “I haven’t heard the music yet; that’s still in production.”

[...] Black added that it offers a particularly savvy dissection of the obsessive attention that celebrity-worship inspires. “There’s some just beautifully written examinations of celebrity as a mental illness that blow my mind.” (Source)

Thanks to Doreen for the heads up! Doreen wrote Confessions of an Original Mind, a bio of the Kauf.

On the New York Times website there's an interesting article about factory production of fake chicken (for the purposes of eating) -- it's the kind of thing Mr. Caden Cotard might read over breakfast with little Olive, yeah?

IT is pretty well established that animals are capable of suffering; we’ve come a long way since Descartes famously compared them to nonfeeling machines put on earth to serve man. (Rousseau later countered this, saying that animals shared “some measure” of human nature and should partake of “natural right.”) No matter where you stand on this spectrum, you probably agree that it’s a noble goal to reduce the level of the suffering of animals raised for meat in industrial conditions. (Source)

Bonus: you can't catch bird flu from a fake chook or turkey. (The animal turkey, that is; not the country Turkey.)

The article includes a link to a 2003 New Yorker review of Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake. (Susan Orlean has been known to write for the New Yorker, and she was a big part of a different Kaufman film. Coincidence?! I THINK SO. Now I'm confusing myself.) Anyway, that review is also worth checking out:

In her towering and intrepid new novel, “Oryx and Crake” (Nan A. Talese/Doubleday; $26), Atwood, who is the daughter of a biologist, vividly imagines a late-twenty-first-century world ravaged by innovations in biological science. Like most literary imaginings of the future, her vision is mournful, bleak, and infernal, and is punctuated, in Atwood style, with the occasional macabre joke—perhaps not unlike Dante’s own literary vision. Atwood’s pilgrim in Hell is Snowman, who, following a genetically engineered viral cataclysm, is, as far as he knows, the only human being who has survived. (Source)

Thanks to Dave!