Charlie Kaufman is no stranger to writing about the film industry. His 2002 film Adaptation was an absolutely brilliant look at the screenwriting process and how writers are treated in Hollywood as a whole. With his next project, however, Kaufman won't be on the inside looking out of the movie world, but rather on the outside looking in.
The Oscar winner recently did an interview with Time Out London in which he revealed the subject of his newest movie, Frank or Francis: online film criticism. While hiding any major details - he is only just about to "embark" on the project - he says that it will have "a lot of scenes and a lot of characters...[a]nd the scope of it and the world it inhabits is very, very large." He also says that the subject isn't much more than a setting, and he isn't necessarily making a comment specifically about online film critics.
"There’s a lot in there about the internet and anger: cultural, societal and individual anger," Kaufman said. "And isolation in this particular age we live in. And competition: it’s about the idea of people in this world wanting to be seen." In July it was reported that the writer has met with Nicolas Cage, Steve Carell and Jack Black about roles in the film, but this newest report doesn't mention them.
As an online film critic, I'm not sure if this is supposed to be awkward or not. Is he going to be writing about professional film critics that happen to write online or just IMDb message board posters? I'd say that the comment about cultural, societal and individual anger would suggest the latter, but I've met some pretty ornery people working in this industry. Either way, if Charlie Kaufman is writing the script, I'm there.
