A few weeks back, we told you about reports that James Franco would be producing and starring in his own superhero movie in Fox’s X-Men universe, and initial murmurings were about Multiple Man. The Hollywood Reporter has released a profile of Franco on Monday (Nov. 27) where he confirms an X project, and while he doesn’t mention if the character is indeed Multiple Man, he does say his movie will continue down the R-rated path of the last couple big mutant hits.
Franco, who’s developing the movie through Ramona Films, the production company he founded with his brother Dave Franco, said he probably wasn’t allowed to say too much about the project (come on, man! DO IT!), but he did confirm he’s producing and will star, saying that “It’s early stages. I think probably what I can say is, like anything, there’s a need to develop more.” He also went on to praise what producer Simon Kinberg has been doing with the X-Men movies of late, diving in to different and more mature tones.
“Our bottom line MO is, how can we push this into new ground? A little bit, but still make it entertaining? [But] what I love about what Simon Kinberg and Fox and the X-Men people have done with Deadpool and Logan — it took a while to get there, maybe 10 years — but they are going to go hard R. And we’re going to take this superhero thing and really just push it into a new genre. So we’re working with Simon Kinberg on an X-Men property.”
The points Franco brings up are incredibly valid ones. The X-Men films began in 2000 and were at the forefront of the superhero movie boom that we’re still in. The problem became, after time, once the Marvel Cinematic Universe began and became monster hits, the X movies seemed a bit passe. But in the last few years, with R-rated hits Deadpool and Logan, the upcoming horror movie The New Mutants, and all of the thoughtful, critically acclaimed television series in the universe, now’s the time for X-Men to embrace the variety and weirdness of the comics.
And an R-rated Multiple Man movie from James Franco could be just the right strangeness. You KNOW there’s going to be a scene where multiple Francos smooch each other, right? There just has to be. As our own Dan Casey said, “a Multiple Man movie could herald a bold new future for Fox’s flagship superhero franchise.” Do you think it will? Let us know in the comments below!
Images: Fox/Marvel/GQ
Kyle Anderson is the Associate Editor for Nerdist. He’s written the animation retrospectives Batman: Reanimated, X-Men: Reanimated, Cowboy Rebop, and Samurai reJacked. Follow him on Twitter!
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