Baltimore filmmaker Waters quashes rumors about movie
Liar, liar pants on fire? The filmmaker John Waters issued a statement Wednesday quashing recent rumors about a film project being developed based on his 2022 novel, “Liarmouth: A Feel Bad Romance.”
In the past 24 hours, several news outlets picked up an unattributed article posted Tuesday on the online film website, World of Reel, stating that actress and comedian Aubrey Plaza is scheduled to star as the novel’s protagonist, Marsha Sprinkles. The website also reported that filming would begin this summer in Baltimore, where parts of the novel are set.
Not so fast, according to the filmmaker.
“While I am thrilled and excited at the idea of Aubrey Plaza starring in my new movie ‘Liarmouth’, the announcement that the film is ready to go in Baltimore, which was printed in an article in World of Reel and then the Guardian, is pure speculation,” Waters wrote in a statement.
“Neither writer talked to me or anyone officially involved in developing this movie. We have no start date or green light to begin production but are working to, hopefully, make that happen.”
Waters told The Baltimore Sun that he would love to work with Plaza, who starred in the NBC sitcom “Parks and Recreation” and more recently, in HBO’s “The White Lotus,” but that any talk of casting is premature.
“L i a r m o u t h ” w a s optioned as a feature film by Village Roadshow Pictures in 2022, with Waters set to write the screenplay and direct the film. Plaza has made no secret of her desire to portray the character of Sprinkles, a suitcase thief and weaver of sadistic but entertaining lies.
The actress told the London-based Dazed & Confused Magazine in 2022 that she emailed Waters as soon as she learned that “Liarmouth” had been optioned and said: “You better let me audition for you. I even look like the girl on the cover [of the book].’ ”
Waters reportedly told Plaza that he would consider her for the part of Sprinkles.
“He told me I’m on his list, but I want to be top of the list,” Plaza told Dazed. “I want to be the only person on his list.”
The novel begins in the baggage claim area of the BWI-Marshall Airport and ends in the LGBTQ-friendly mecca of Provincetown, Massachusetts.
Marsha is on the lam from the airport police, her daughter’s sect of trampoline-bouncing enthusiasts and her own mother, who performs cosmetic surgery on pets.
A former employee of Marsha’s is determined to collect the sexual salary he’s been promised for providing a year of free labor, but his talking penis (aptly named “Richard”) has ideas of its own.
It’s been two decades since Waters’ most recent film “A Dirty Shame” was released in 2004 — though not because Baltimore’s Bard of Bad Taste lost interest in moviemaking. He told The Sun in 2021 that he previously had been paid to write four screenplays that never got made.
But that was before the filmmaker achieved two important and prestigious career milestones last September.
Waters received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures opened what it described as “the first comprehensive exhibit” of the filmmaker’s oeuvre.
The “John Waters: Pope of Trash” exhibition continues through Aug. 4.