James Franco

If you read up on the life of explorer Gertrude Bell, it’s abundantly clear that this is a woman whose story should be told. In 2003, The Guardian devoted an entire article to the influence her cartography had on the modern Middle East, with Bell practically drawing the country border of Iraq by her lonesome. And now audiences will be able to explore her legacy with Queen of the Desert (via Deadline), a new film starring Nicole Kidman and both written and directed by the legendary Werner Herzog.

With every new studio release, Ridley Scott likes to remind us all of his background in advertising. The director behind the canonized “Nineteen Eighty-Four” Macintosh commercial tends to mount an inventive promotional campaign for each of his motion picture efforts — both Prometheus and The Martian showed off their elaborate, space-ready production design through early faux-featurettes, and Scott has pulled the same move today. This morning saw the release of a “prologue” video titled “The Last Supper” in relation to the upcoming sequel Alien: Covenant, and while it gives viewers a chance to familiarize themselves with the crew of a major interstellar colonization effort, it’s also a chilling bait-and-switch unto itself.

James Franco called Selena Gomez his 'secret weapon' when discussing his decision to cast the actress in his film, 'In Dubious Battle.'

Say what you will about James Franco, you can’t deny he isn’t a prolific artist. With a metric ton of projects that are either ongoing or announced, Franco has enough work to keep him busy for the next half a century. And like any actor-director, he has his favored collaborators, and he’s just announced that Bryan Cranston will play a younger version of himself for their third collaboration together.

Showbiz is weird sometimes: director Justin Kelly premiered his first feature-length film I Am Michael at Sundance in January 2015, where James Franco earned scattered praise for his performance as real-life “ex-gay” Michael Glatze. Instead of sitting on his hands and waiting for the film to land a distribution deal, Kelly went right ahead and commenced work on his second feature, the gay porn saga King Cobra, which premiered at Tribeca back in the spring of 2016. “James Franco in a movie about gay porn” proved to be a more hooky angle, and the film was shown in theaters across America this past fall. That bump to Kelly’s profile enabled him to finally land distribution for I Am Michael, the trailer for which surfaced yesterday in advance of its release on January 27. Both debut and not, Kelly’s first film will be his second release. Just a fun film-industry fact.

The following post contains potential spoilers for Alien: Covenant, including a pretty surprising new cast member (who essentially has a glorified cameo). In addition, a handful of newly-leaked set photos have arrived online, revealing some intriguing — though seemingly not too spoiler-y — details about Ridley Scott’s latest Alien prequel. Spoilers ahoy, and all that.

The entertainment industry has done Bryan Cranston dirty. His award-hoarding turn as mild-mannered meth kingpin Walt White on Breaking Bad should have cracked Hollywood wide open for him, with high-power producers lining up to cast him in the next big prestige release. But for every Trumbo (which earned Cranston an Oscar nomination, despite plenty of shortcomings), there is a Why Him?, and the soggy prosthetic moose scrotum that goes with it.

If you thought the green band trailer for Goat seemed a little too inoffensive considering the subject matter, then you were, obviously, correct. The red band trailer for the Sundance hit has arrived, and it’s filled with all the profanity and boozing and nudity and cautionary fraternizing you might expect from a film about the perils of hazing. It also proves that it doesn’t take much to convince us that James Franco is incredibly punchable.

Based on their short film Bag Man, Kin will be directed by brothers Jonathan and Josh Baker, and has already signed on Dennis Quaid. According to The Hollywood Reporter, James Franco, Jack Reynor, and Zoe Kravitz have joined the cast of the sci-fi tale about an ex-con (Reynor) and his adopted brother who are on the run from nefarious beings. The brothers will have to escape a vengeful criminal played by Franco and find a mysterious weapon.

The James Franco-directed video, shot at L.A.'s Chateau Marmont, is NSFW unless you work at a fetish club.