The career-spanning exhibition at the Academy Museum for John Waters opened last September and will run until the end of August. Waters had spoken to Variety before the exhibition’s opening, but was unable to discuss any projects due to the writers’ strike. Now Waters has spoken up more about projects after providing live commentary this weekend for Hag in a Black Leather Jacket and Roman Candles, his first two short films, which were both newly restored and had really never been screened before.
Now 77, Waters has lived through a shift in how his films have been perceived through the decades. Talking to the crowd at the screening, Waters discussed what he had been working on in the past two decades, saying, “My last film was 20 years ago, but I’ve been paid to write six other ones in that time. Four different sequels to Hairspray; [Christmas comedy] Fruitcake, which has gone through a couple of versions that still might happen; and Liarmouth,” which is based on his novel of the same name and is, as Waters describes, “a feel-bad romance.”
Waters also confirmed that Aubrey Plaza would be cast in the Liarmouth film as Marsha Sprinkle, a compulsive kleptomaniac, “I’m thrilled that she’s going to [star in it], but we don’t have the money yet. I don’t know what’s going to happen, and so I’m trying to get Fruitcake going too. We’ll see,” Waters stated.
Considering there was a full house at the Academy Museum for the iconoclastic director’s weekend shows, there will certainly be plenty of excitement and buzz around anything Waters makes!