Every four to six months we try to quench your insatiable appetite for news about Pope Joan. We’ve already told you that Franka Potente was going to play the Joan in question and that John Goodman wanted out of this project so badly he was willing to get sued over it. Now comes word that Volker Schlondorff has been fired as director of the movie.
The Hollywood Reporter says that Constantin Films canned Schlondorff, who directed The Tin Drum a long ass time ago, for criticizing the plan to make two versions of the film, one for the theaters and one as a television special. Constantin uses this strategy to squeeze every last dollar out of bigger budget films. Schlondorff said, in an article in the German paper Suedeutsche Zeitung, the requirement was interfering with his artistic freedom so Constantin kicked him to the curb.
At this point, it looks like filming for Pope Joan, about a woman pretending to be a man who becomes pope during the Dark Ages, will not begin until 2008. Look for it in a movie theater near you (or a German television station, it seems) sometime before we reach the teen years.
