The most frequent question Curb Your Enthusiasm co-creator Robert B. Weide gets asked is apparently, “When are you going to finish your Kurt Vonnegut documentary?”. Weide started filming the author in 1988, having secured Vonnegut's blessing for a film project as early as 1982. And 33 years on, Weide is finally getting round to using the footage, co-directing Kurt Vonnegut: Unstuck In Time with documentarist Don Argott (As The Palaces Burn, The Art Of The Steal). A Kickstarter campaign has just launched, which comes with a trailer.
"It's going to be amazing," Argott tells Empire. "Bob Weide did the Woody Allen documentary a couple of years ago: a Lenny Bruce documentary, a Marx Brothers documentary... he's been a filmmaker for years. I met him in Kiev and we hung out and hit it off and had known and liked each other's work, and he called me to ask if I'd be interested in helping him with this Vonnegut film he'd been working on for over 30 years.
"He was funding this thing out of his own pocket and became best friends with Kurt until Kurt's death in 2007. He felt like he could no longer look at what he had as an objective filmmaker, so he wanted to continue the original project but also tell his own story of being friends with Kurt and trying to make this film. That's where I come in!"
Previously unseen interviews with the author of Slaughterhouse-Five and Breakfast Of Champions, shot over decades... Unstuck In Time is clearly a big deal and a tantalising prospect, although Weide admits to a tinge of sadness. "Maybe when the film is finally finished", he says, "it confirms that this incredible adventure - becoming very close friends with someone I admired so much - has finally come to an end.”
Weide and Argott are looking for $250k in crowdfunding to climb that mountain of footage and finally assemble a coherent film. Should you feel like throwing them a few quid, the page is here.