![\"james-franco1\"](\"http:\/\/james-franco.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/james-franco1.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\nJames Franco is developing three movies based on novels by crime fiction writer Tom Franklin \u2014 \u201cSmonk,\u201d \u201cPoachers,\u201d and \u201cHell at the Breech,\u201d Variety has learned exclusively.<\/p>\n
Franco and partner Vince Jolivette are producing through their Rabbit Bandini Productions, which recently obtained the movie rights in a deal put in place by Joel Gotler of Intellectual Property Group on behalf of Nat Sobel of Sobel Weber Associates. The company has tapped screenwriters for each project.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe plan on shooting all three of them in the next one to three years,\u201d Jolivette told Variety. \u201cThere are no plans at this point for James to act or direct, just for us to produce. We feel the material is rich enough to attract A-level talent.\u201d<\/p>\n
Playwright David Van Asselt is working on a script for \u201cPoachers\u201d and Franklin will write the \u201cSmonk\u201d script. Ian Olds and Paul Felton are penning the adaptation of \u201cHell at the Breech.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re labeling these as our gritty Southern Gothic series of films,\u201d Jolivette said.<\/p>\n
\u201cPoachers,\u201d Franklin\u2019s first book, is a collection of short stories. The title story, which won the Edgar Award for best mystery short story, focuses on three wild boys confronting a mythic game warden as mysterious and deadly as the river they haunt.<\/p>\n
\u201cSmonk\u201d is set in 1911 in Old Texas, Ala., where every Saturday night for a year, E.O. Smonk has been destroying property, killing livestock, seducing women, and beating men.<\/p>\n
\u201cHell at the Breech\u201d takes place in 1897. When an aspiring politician is mysteriously murdered in a rural area of Alabama, outraged friends \u2014 mostly poor cotton farmers \u2014 form a secret society, Hell-at-the-Breech, to punish the townspeople they believe responsible.<\/p>\n
Franco has starred in and Jolivette has produced two adaptations of William Faulkner novels about the rural South in the early 20th Century \u2014 \u201cThe Sound and the Fury,\u201d which premiered at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival, and \u201cAs I Lay Dying,\u201d which debuted at the 2014 Venice Film Festival.<\/p>\n
Franco has been producing, co-directing, and co-starring in the post-apocalyptic thriller \u201cFuture World\u201d with Milla Jovovich, Suki Waterhouse, Snoop Dogg, and Method Man. Franco\u2019s recently completed projects include \u201cThe Adderall Diaries,\u201d \u201cI Am Michael,\u201d \u201cIn Dubious Battle,\u201d \u201cThe Long Hour,\u201d \u201cPalo Alto,\u201d and \u201cThe Masterpiece.\u201d<\/p>\n
Franco also directed and co-produced \u201cThe Masterpiece,\u201d which centers on the making of Tommy Wiseau\u2019s 2003 cult film \u201cThe Room.\u201d Rabbit Bandini, Point Grey, and Good Universe are producing the New Line film. Franco plays Wiseau. His brother Dave Franco, Seth Rogen, Josh Hutcherson, Ari Graynor, Jackie Weaver, and Bryan Cranston also star.<\/p>\n
James Franco is also starring with Cranston in Fox\u2019s upcoming comedy \u201cWhy Him?,\u201d which opens on Dec. 25.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n