variety.com reports that James Franco will star in the Hulu mini-series 11.22.63. Elizabeth Wagmeister notes that not only will Franco star in the series, but he is also set serve as a producer on the miniseries. The program is set to be nine hours. Franco will play the lead role of Jake Epping.
Personally, this is where apprehensive misgivings start to crop up for me.
ReplyDeleteThe reason has to do with the implied backstage politics (if any) in the article.
It sounds as if there's a lot of hand-on executive control in this production, and that a lot of it might not come from either King, Abrams, or entirely from Franco.
I'm less bothered by the fact that Franco is slated to star (though my personal choice for Jake would've been Thomas Jane (The Mist)), rather, my concern is that the people at HULU.com either might be solely concerned about the property from a marketing angle, or else they just don't have enough confidence in the source material to believe it can make a viable mini-series, hence their focus on hype and marketing as opposed to the story idea itself.
I don't know, maybe I'm being paranoid (although in Hollywood, paranoid is often not enough).
ChrisC
Speaking of Thomas Jane - he's been my #1 choice to play Roland ever since I saw The Mist.
ReplyDeleteAs for a 9 hour miniseries of 11/22/63 . . . let's keep our fingers crossed tight.