An official trailer has been released for James Franco’s As I Lay Dying film adaptation. We’ve embedded the trailer above–what do you think?

According to Deadline, the story follows “a Mississippi family that sets out to fulfill their matriarch’s final wish.” The movie will screen at the Cannes Film Festival.

Franco directed, acted, and co-wrote the script based on William Faulkner‘s celebrated novel. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Franco said he hopes to “be loyal to the book.”

Amazon has created its own literary fiction imprint called Little A. Designer Chip Kidd created the logos for this new corner of Amazon Publishing.

The new imprint will focus on novels, memoirs and story collections. It will include books by James Franco, A.L. Kennedy and Jenny Davidson.  The publisher will also open a digital-only series that will be part of the larger imprint. Check it out:

Day One is a digital-only series within Little A that is focused on short stories from debut writers and is available in North America and in the U.K. The first title, Kodi Scheer’s, haunting, fabulist “When a Camel Breaks Your Heart” was released on February 5, 2013. On March 19, Day One will release “Monster” by McSweeney’s contributor Bridget Clerkin, in which a woman struggles to keep her dysfunctional family together amid unsettling events–the family dog goes missing and an unidentified, mysterious animal corpse washes up on the beach.

Read more

Academy Award-nominated actor James Franco will make his Broadway debut in the Of Mice and Men stage revival.

During an appearance on The Colbert Report to promote Oz the Great and Powerful, Franco revealed that he will take on the lead role of George Milton. The video embedded above contains the full interview–what do you think?

John Steinbeck‘s book was first published in 1937. Over the years, this celebrated novel has inspired countless adaptations from theatrical projects to award-winning movies and even a radio play. Who would you cast as the rabbit-loving giant Lennie Small? (via BuzzFeed)

Yahoo News asked a group of poets to write their own inauguration poems, just like President Barack Obama commissioned Richard Blanco to write a poem for the swearing-in ceremony.

The participating writers included Pulitzer Prize-winning poets James Tate and Paul Muldoon, Our Andromeda author Brenda Shaughnessy, The Grey Album: On the Blackness of Blackness author Kevin Young and James Franco.

The video embedded above features readings by Young, Muldoon and Franco. What do you think?

Read more

Movie star and author James Franco has inked a book deal to publish his debut poetry collection with Graywolf Press. Publication is set for April of 2014.

In an interview with MTV News, Franco said was pondering “the idea of L.A. as a place where people’s dreams can come true, but also L.A. as a place that eats its young.” He had already written poems about a famous Los Angeles hotel and Lindsay Lohan.

Here’s an excerpt: I’ve done a few projects about actors that have died young — James Dean, River Phoenix and Brad Renfro. Lindsay and I had reconnected at that time. I had been writing some poems about the Chateau Marmont and one or two of the poems involved Lindsay [Lohan].” (Link via Don Linn, Image via Twitter)

Actor and author James Franco has begun working on his film adaptation of William Faulkner‘s celebrated book, As I Lay Dying.

The New York Daily News reported that Franco plans to be “loyal” to the Faulkner text. So far, the cast includes Danny McBride, Tim Blake Nelson, Logan Marshall Green, Ahna O’Reilly and Jim Parrack. Shooting begins in October, but no release date has been revealed.

Here’s more from Showbiz 411: “Franco himself will  have a small role in the film, based on Faulkner’s famous tale told in more than a dozen voices….The last time someone tried to make one of his novels into a film was the legendary Martin Ritt, in 1959, with The Sound and the Fury.”

Read more

Amazon has struck a new deal to distribute its books outside of its popular online store. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s brand new New Harvest imprint will now publish “all of Amazon Publishing’s New York-based imprint’s adult titles in print and distribute them in North America outside of the Amazon.com platform.”

When Amazon Publishing’s East Coast Group launches its inaugural list next fall, it will include books by Tim Ferriss, Penny Marshall, Deepak Chopra and James Franco. Last year Houghton Mifflin Harcourt mounted a major restructuring.

Amazon Publishing’s East Coast Group publisher Larry Kirshbaum had this statement: “Our goal has been, and remains, to introduce authors to as many readers as possible … This new agreement with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt enables us to broaden our distribution and get our books into more readers’ hands.”

Actor and author James Franco has landed a book deal to publish his first novel with Amazon.

According to the New York Observer, 3 Arts Entertainment agent Richard Abate negotiated the deal for Actors Anonymous with Amazon fiction editor (and departed Believer editor) Ed Park. As you ponder the news, you should listen to the Hoodie Allen song, “James Franco.” The video is embedded above, with a bit of NSFW language.

Here’s more about the deal: “The novel is  said to be a fictionalized version of Mr. Franco’s experiences as an actor (and grad student?). Mr. Franco’s first book, a collection of short stories called Palo Alto, was published by Scribner.”

Lindsay Lohan has reportedly signed a £2.1million deal to pose for a nude photography book. According to The Daily Mirror, Academy Award host James Franco will be her partner for this project.

The video embedded shows the pair in the trailer for an imaginary action film in the 2006 film, The Holiday. Lohan and Franco will be shot by celebrity photographer Terry Richardson. In the past, Richardson has snapped the pictures of Lady Gaga, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jay-Z, and many others.

The Mirror reports: “Richardson has persuaded Lindsay and James to get involved. He has assured them it will be provocative but tasteful … Obviously there will be comparisons to Madonna’s 1992 Sex book. But James and Lindsay believe theirs will be classier.” (Via Sarah Weinman)

Actor and author James Franco will direct film adaptations of William Faulkner‘s As I Lay Dying and Cormac McCarthy‘s Blood Meridian. The Faulkner film will begin production in summer 2011 and the McCarthy film will follow in 2012.

Franco (pictured, via) explained how he intends to deal with Faulkner’s rotating narrators to Entertainment Weekly: “I don’t believe it’ll feel the same if you divide it as rigidly as the book, like titles that say ‘Cash’ and then you’re with Cash. You can slip into the characters’ heads and give them their inner voice for a while, but it has to be more fluid because movies just work differently than books.”

In addition to publishing a short story collection last year, Franco took on the roles of poet Allen Ginsberg in Howl and memoirist Aron Ralston in 127 Hours. (Via Shelf Awareness)