Jack Black, Nicolas Cage And Steve Carell Attached To Charlie Kaufman's 'Frank Or Francis'

Here's a pretty great bit of news that doesn't come from Comic Con: Charlie Kaufman's long-gestating Frank or Francis now has a possible cast. Jack Black and Nicolas Cage are now attached to the film, and Charlie Kaufman is in talks with Steve Carell to sign on, too.

Deadline has the news, saying that the film is likely to shoot in 2012. This will be Charlie Kaufman's second directorial effort, after Synecdoche, New York. And it would be his second collaboration with Nicolas Cage, who played a just slightly unreal version of Kaufman in the Spike Jonze-directed Adaptation.

(Spike Jonze, too, is putting together a new Charlie Kaufman-scripted film that has Joaquin Phoenix attached to star.)

We don't know a lot about Frank or Francis, but do know that the basic plot is about "a volatile back and forth between a film director (Frank) and an online blogger (Francis), who takes delight in berating his cinematic talent."

Having these three names attached should help the film secure financing. And this could be an excellent cast for Kaufman to work with. We know that Nic Cage can do great work with a Charlie Kaufman script; Jack Black got good notes for his work with Richard Linklater in Bernie, hopefully breaking his run of super-broad, silly roles; and Steve Carell seems like the sort of actor that Kaufman could twist into little knots.