There was a gap of ten whole years between Roman Coppola‘s debut feature, CQ, and a production start on his sophomore effort, the Charlie Sheen-led A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III. It’s taken him a while to get back behind the camera for something that isn’t a music video — which should create enough interest as is — but although a semi-biographical look at the actor’s wacky antics caught our attention when things coalesced last fall, the shooting and post-production was (and has been) a pretty quiet affair. So, yes, it’s still on-track to hit later this year — but did anybody else sort of forget this project’s existence between then and now?

I think that time is over. Coppola gave a big update to HeyUGuys, with whom he revealed that Charles Swan is, contrary to what we may have thought, a ’70s-set piece about an album cover designer — something he sees as ironic, since “there are no album cover designers any more because there are no album covers” — that, like All That Jazz, is really about “a lover of women [who's] trying to keep it together.” As we had already heard, however, a breakup with his girlfriend sends him off the deep end, and, “[t]hrough delirious fantasies involving his many failed romances, he begins the hard road of self-evaluation to come to terms with life without her.” (His way of summarizing tells us it’s all “more fantastical than real life,” with the audience getting to “see how he feels about his relationship through his fantasies.”)

Jason Schwartzman will play his best friend; Patricia Arquette, his sister; and Bill Murray — who (sort of) worked with Coppola on The Darjeeling Limited and Moonrise Kingdom — is appearing as his accountant. And while, admittedly, most people will see Sheen‘s turn as something of “playing yourself,” Coppola, to no one’s surprise, praised his performance for the “contrast to some of the imagery that people have in their minds” of the guy. I, like almost everyone else,  have some skepticism about how he’s actually pulled off the role, but some trust (probably) won’t hurt.

When it comes to his next work behind the camera — something that, given the long span between his first and second films, never even crossed my mind — the helmer said he’d like to emulate Alan Parker‘s kid gangster film Bugsy Malone and make a film whose cast is comprised entirely of children; something’s also being planned with Schwartzman, in the meantime. For him, it’s all about “get[ting] into a groove” with a project and taking that in a creative direction.

Do Coppola’s plans for Charles Swan lend the project any promise in your view?