James Franco has optioned the film rights to Steve Erickson’s 2007 novel, “Zeroville,” reports Variety. He will develop the project under his Rabbit Bandini Productions and may direct, but there are no plans for him to star.
The book is described as follows:
Zeroville begins in 1969 on Hollywood Boulevard, when a Greyhound bus drops off a film-obsessed ex-seminarian with images of Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift tattooed on his head. Vikar Jerome steps into the vortex of a cultural transformation: rock ‘n’ roll, sex, drugs, andfar more important to himthe decline of the movie studios and the rise of the independent director. Jerome will become a film editor of astonishing vision. Then through encounters with former starlets, burglars, political guerillas, punk musicians, and veteran filmmakers, he discovers the astonishing secret that lies in every movie ever made.
An early 2012 start date is being eyed.
