James Franco is going to kill himself through exhaustion at this rate. He’s still promoting 127 Hours and Howl, he’s got Your Highness coming out fairly soon, he’s co-hosting the Oscars, he’s preparing for a second stint on the US soap General Hospital, has numerous film projects bubbling away, and now it appears he’s already shooting a movie we hadn’t heard too much about before and is thinking of making a biopic of Rebel Without A Cause actor Sal Mineo.
Maladies, which the actor is currently shooting, is believed to be the movie Franco did his first General Hospital gig as preparation for, saying a few months ago that ‘its tied to another film that he and I (artist and director Carter, who Franco previously made a short film with) are working on now. Its not specifically for another project, because I know that hes really enjoying the challenge of working on a soap – its a very taxing job, and an interesting thing for him to be doing – but it does have to do with another film that he and I are working on.’
Now it appears the movie is already shooting, as THR talked to Alan Cumming, who has a small part in the film and says ‘[Maladies] is really fascinating, directed by this guy Carter who is the artist that James [Franco] has been collaborating with… I’m just doing a little part… and just for Christmas.’ The film centres on a successful actor who retires at a young age due to what is believed to be a mental illness. Claire Danes and Catherine Keener also star.
If that weren’t enough to keep Franco busy, THR also report that he’s optioned the rights to the book Sal Mineo: A Biography, by artist and photographer Michael Gregg Michaud. Franco apparently views it as a writing-and-directing vehicle, and doesn’t currently plan to star. It’d be an interesting move, as he won a Golden Globe for playing James Dean in a 2001 TV movie, and now may make a movie about the movie icon’s Rebel Without A Cause and Giant co-star.
It also continues Franco’s fascination with gay characters. Having played the likes of Scott Smith in Milk and Allen Ginsberg in Howl, he now wants to write and direct a movie about a conflicted gay actor. Mineo was gay but found it very diffifult to deal with (it was still illegal in most parts of the US in the 50s and 60s, when he first found fame), and so publicly dated a string of beautiful women, had a fiancee, but secretly also had male lovers as well. He was stabbed to death outside his house, in what’s believed to have been a robbery gone wrong, when he was only 37.
It’s not known when the movie about Mineo might get made, but Maladies should be in cinemas next year.