I guess give James Franco an E for effort or a P for persistence. Despite making a series of movies as a director or producer that have all been flops, he’s going to direct again.
I’m told Franco is casting for a film called “High School Lover,” which he will co-direct with Jerell Rosales. It’s about a young girl who has an affair with an older man. He will play the girl’s father. The girl will be played by Paula Singer.
The bizarre part of this is that as a director Franco has not been a success. He has four movies listed with boxofficemojo.com. Their total box office take is $105,438. And that excludes some that simply never registered as releases including his adaption of William Faulkner’s “The Sound and the Fury.” There is no record that film was ever released or earned any money.
There are also a bunch of films that he was responsible for producing or instigating, all flops including “Palo Alto,” “Maladies,” and “The Adderall Diaries.” He appeared as an actor in a Wim Wenders movie that made eight thousand dollars, and a film called “Yosemite” based on his own short stories that took in just over thirteen thousand dollars.
Still, Franco — nominated for an Oscar in “127 Hours,” has some things to look forward to–an HBO series with Maggie Gyllenhaal called “The Deuce,” and a big studio feature called “Why Him?” with Bryan Cranston that sounds like the 4th installment of “Meet the Parents.”
But “High School Lover” already could join that long list of indie projects no one will see, and upon which good money may be lost. No one says no to stars when they want to make their own movies. It’s impressive that the money is always there.
