James Franco certainly likes a challenge, and now he’s got a new one, as he’s told MTV that he plans to direct and star in an adaptation of James Ellroy’s American Tabloid. The book is the first novel in Ellroy’s Underworld USA trilogy, which is his fictionalised, violent look at the mid-twentieth century.
Franco did urge a noted of caution though, saying “We’re going to do American Tabloid’ by James Ellroy [But] it’s not all put together yet. It’s still early.”
The book is about three men – strongarm muscle Pete Bondurant, FBI agent Kemper Boyd, and accountant Ward Littell – who get drawn into a web of violent tension between the FBI, CIA, Mafia, Teamsters, and Howard Hughes, which all comes together in Dallas on the day of President JFK’s assassination. The novel is a great mixture of history and conspiracy theory, and it’ll certainly be a tough task for Franco to successfully bring it to the big screen.
We’ll have to see whether it actually does go ahead – after all we’re still waiting for Franco’s versions of Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian and William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, which he’s previously announced.