James Franco and Winona Ryder sign on for The Stare

James Franco has officially added another project to his heaving slate: he'll join Winona Ryder in The Stare .

According to a report by Deadline, the Oscar-nominated actor will join Ryder in the first project from newly-founded production company Waterstone Entertainment.

The Stare casts Ryder as a troubled playwright suffering mental problems as she tries to launch her new production. She slowly starts to lose her grip on reality as she succumbs to paranoid thoughts about being watched and plotted against.

Franco is set to play one of the actors in the production. The film will no doubt draw comparisons to Black Swan , which also focused on the psychological strain of performance and multiple levels of reality.

Ryder has been making something of a slow and steady comeback of late, providing solid support in Star Trek and Black Swan , and she'll be lending her voice to upcoming Tim Burton animation Frankenweenie .

James Franco recently received an Oscar nod for his performance in 127 Hours , and he counts blockbusters Rise of the Planet of the Apes and Oz: The Great and Powerful among his upcoming projects.

Matt Maytum
Editor, Total Film

I'm the Editor at Total Film magazine, overseeing the running of the mag, and generally obsessing over all things Nolan, Kubrick and Pixar. Over the past decade I've worked in various roles for TF online and in print, including at GamesRadar+, and you can often hear me nattering on the Inside Total Film podcast. Bucket-list-ticking career highlights have included reporting from the set of Tenet and Avengers: Infinity War, as well as covering Comic-Con, TIFF and the Sundance Film Festival.