James Franco: Serial killer? Wants to direct and star in The Night Stalker

I just checked our archives, and in about the last six months or so, we’ve managed to write 22 stories featuring James Franco. The range of projects he’s been and is currently attached to is pure insanity, and we’ve covered his rumored attachment to RICKY STINICKY, RISE OF THE APES, HOWL, THE ADDERALL DIARIES, THE ICEMAN, ELYSIUM, CLASH OF THE TITANS 2, WHILE WE WERE YOUNG, BLOOD MERIDIAN, AS I LAY DYING and not to mention his gigs on General Hospital or hosting this year’s Oscars. I even saw him in GREEN HORNET for a scene unless I was hallucinating.

Time to add one more onto the pile. Franco is saying he now wants to direct and star in THE NIGHT STALKER, the tale of real-life serial killer Richard Ramirez, based on the book by Philip Carlo. Ramirez was responsible for a string of vicious murders in the ’80s and it seems Franco would want to explore his dark side with the project. Screenwriter Nicholas Constantine explains where the script current is:

“This isn’t a horror film,” he explains. “Nor does it glorify Ramirez in any way. Philip Carlo painted an amazing portrait of Ramirez the human being, and how he became that monster. James Franco shares that vision, and we all agree that he’s the one actor, and now director, who can do that vision justice. He read the material and responded to it immediately.”

You know, until I see some of these projects actually being made, I’m going to have to say Franco is the actor/director/host crying wolf right now. No one can multitask this well. Can they?

From Wikipedia:

Franco reportedly has “an unusually high metabolism for productivity…a superhuman ability to focus”. Dissatisfied with his career’s direction, Franco reenrolled at UCLA in the fall of 2006 as an English major with a creative writing concentration. Having received permission to take as many as 62 course credits per quarter compared to the normal limit of 19 while continuing to act, he received his undergraduate degree in June 2008 with a GPA over 3.5.

For his degree, Franco prepared his departmental honors thesis as a novel under the supervision of Mona Simpson. He moved to New York to simultaneously attend graduate school at Columbia University’s MFA writing program, New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts for filmmaking, and Brooklyn College for fiction writing, while occasionally commuting to North Carolina’s Warren Wilson College for poetry. As of 2010, Franco is a PhD student in English at Yale University and will also attend the Rhode Island School of Design.

Christ on a cracker. This guy’s going to be president someday isn’t he? Or we’ll discover he’s some alien robot programmed to take over earth with a winning smile and a bionic computer for a brain.