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James Franco has addressed rumours that he’s prepping to direct two book adaptations, confirming that he's looking to take a seat in the director's chair.
With gossip swirling yesterday that the star would be adapting William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying and Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian for the screen, Franco touched base with EW to confirm they’re both on his slate.
The actor, who will host this year’s Oscar awards with Anne Hathaway, revealed that he hopes to shoot As I Lay Dying this summer.
“You want to capture the tone,” he says, “but you can’t work in exactly the same way. I don’t believe it’ll feel the same if you divide it as rigidly as the book, like titles that say ‘Cash’ and then you’re with Cash.
“I want to be loyal to the book - my approach is to always be loyal in a lot a ways - but in order to be loyal I will have to change some things for the movie.”
Meanwhile, Franco hopes that he’ll direct Blood Meridian a year later in 2012. He’s already prepped for the film by shooting a scene from the book with help from Scott Glenn and Luke Perry. Like you do.
“We made that as a way to convince Scott Rudin to give us the rights,” Franco says. “It was like, why should he give it to me when Ridley Scott didn’t make it?
“So I called him up and said, ‘I’m planning on doing this. You don’t have to give me any money, I can finance this shoot. Would you just wait? Don’t do anything with it until I show this to you.’ And I showed it to him and he loved it.”
