James Franco’s ‘Blood Meridian’ May Be Dead, But He’s Now Shooting Cormac McCarthy’s ‘Child Of God’
By Russ Fischer/Feb. 6, 2012 5:00 pm EST
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Franco is evidently undaunted on the McCarthy front, however, as he is now reportedly at work on a film version of the author’s third novel Child of God. This one is a bit less challenging than Blood Meridian, but no less intense and, potentially, controversial.
Roger Friedman reports that Franco is shooting the movie now in West Virginia. (He also reports that the Franco version of Blood Meridian is definitely dead.) News of Franco adapting the book first surfaced last fall.
There was some supposition that this could be another ’test shoot’ sort of scenario, but Friedman says “Franco tells me from the set that the shoot is going extremely well, and he’s very excited about the results.”
The film features Tim Blake Nelson and “a number of West Virginia locals” but it sounds like Franco is in the lead role: “Lester Ballard–a violent, dispossessed man falsely accused of rape–who haunts the hill country of East Tennessee when he is released from jail.”
So this could be almost a one-man show, presumably with Franco in the lead and fairly small supporting roles from the other actors. (Which is too bad in a way; I like Franco, but I’d really like to see Tim Blake Nelson playing the lead.)
