As HBO’s new telecommunications overlords figure out how to mess with a good thing, the premium-cable network is over here conducting the kind of business that earned it the reputation that got AT&T’s attention in the first place.
The Disaster Artist, James Franco’s adaptation of the book that delved into the making of the infinitely beguiling trainwreck The Room, received a largely positive response from audiences and critics. (We gave it a C.) One fan of the film was Tommy Wiseau, the man behind The Room, who loved the film despite having…
James Franco, whose résumé as a director is as extensive as it is undistinguished, leaves behind the misbegotten literary adaptations that have been the bedrock of his filmography to try his hand at a sci-fi B-movie in Future World, co-directed with repeat collaborator Bruce Thierry Cheung. In a post-apocalyptic…
With North Korea being back in the news so much recently, it seems as good a time as any to consult Hollywood’s foremost expert on all things related to Kim Jong-un, Seth Rogen. Back in 2014, Rogen and his longtime friend James Franco made a little movie called The Interview, which centered around two bumbling…
It may be Sunday afternoon (depending on where you live), but it’s always a good time for Trailer Happy Hour—The A.V. Club feature where we grab a handful of trailers, toss them into a bucket, and then dump the bucket over our heads as an elaborate prank. Today, we’ve got James Franco looking down the wrong end of a…
The allegations of sexual misconduct that got James Franco expunged from Vanity Fair’s annual Hollywood issue and disinvited from a New York Times speaking gig don’t seem to have affected his working relationship with HBO: Franco will return to The Deuce for its second season, as writer Megan Abbott told reporters at…
The extra hands and legs on Reese Witherspoon and Oprah on yesterday’s Vanity Fair cover were instantly infamous, but the bigger story may be what wasn’t there. According to The Hollywood Reporter, The Disaster Artist star James Franco was photographed alongside the “12 Extraordinary Stars” who ended up gracing Vanity…
Katie Rife: Well, we’ve reached the pinnacle of awards season: The 2018 Oscar nominations were announced this morning. Watching the live stream, there were two films that exceeded my admittedly cynical expectations: Get Out defied the Academy’s historical bias against genre films with four major nominations—Best…
Just a few days after James Franco attended the Golden Globes with a Time’s Up pin indicating his support for the campaign to set up a legal defense fund in support of women who have been harassed in the workplace, The Los Angeles Times published a story about five women who had accused him of “sexually inappropriate…
James Franco was honored with a Critics’ Choice Award last night for his work on The Disaster Artist, despite The Los Angeles Times publishing allegations from five women that he’d engaged in exploitative or sexually inappropriate behavior while they were his students or mentees. And it appears that HBO is also…
James Franco’s decision to sport a Time’s Up pin at this year’s Golden Globes just got more contentious, as The Los Angeles Times has published accounts from multiple women about The Disaster Artist star’s “sexually inappropriate or exploitative behavior.”
Like everyone else these days, late-night hosts (and their bookers) are constantly on the alert for the next high-profile entertainment figure accused of sexual abuse, harassment, or general creepiness. For example, Stephen Colbert and his Late Show staff had time back in November to ax a scheduled appearance by Louis…
Variety reports that The New York Times has canceled an upcoming speaking event centered on actor and director James Franco, in light of questions raised about his attitudes and behaviors toward women in the wake of this weekend’s Golden Globes. Franco was originally scheduled to give one of the paper’s TimeTalks…
Whether it came from an earnest desire to let women take the spotlight or a panicked attempt to avoid attracting attention, the fact remains that none of the men who won awards at the Golden Globes last night had much—scratch that, anything—to say about the #MeToo movement. There was a sea of black tuxedos, sure, but…
Whether or not you believe James Franco deserved a Golden Globe for his portrayal of The Room auteur Tommy Wiseau, we can all agree that Wiseau deserved at least a few seconds on the mic himself. There would be no Disaster Artist without Wiseau, after all, and at least a small part of the film’s appeal is watching…
James Franco’s fourth go at hosting Saturday Night Live this past weekend marked one of the show’s better turns in an uneven season, but one sketch was an unmitigated disaster (and not one that would require an “artist” to pull off). In it, Franco plays an enthusiastic Bloomingdale’s gift wrapper who can’t stop…
Now almost 15 years after the release of The Room, Tommy Wiseau is something of a star, complete with a verified Twitter account and a Golden Globe-nominated biopic. The next logical step is, of course, for him to take on the world of video games, which his cultural host-body James Franco has been kind enough to make…
“I do a lot of jobs.” “Don’t do that James Franco!”
James Franco is very, very into playing The Room’s Tommy Wiseau, not just in The Disaster Artist, for which he’s receiving raves, but also out in the wild. Nary a late-night interview has gone by without Franco dipping into the voice at least once, and if you stick around after the credits for the film you’ll see him…
The past few years have seen Tommy Wiseau’s opus, The Room, discover unexpected relevancy, culminating in this year’s The Disaster Artist, the film adaptation of Greg Sestero’s memoir about the making of the film. But why did Sestero and Wiseau entrust Franco to earnestly tell the story of making the most famous bad…
