Proving that he wants to be more than the guy that played the Green Goblin, actor James Franco has acquired Stephen Elliott’s The Adderall Diaries, which he intends to write, direct and star. The memoir in some ways echoes Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood in that it chronicles a murder trial. Elliott, who experienced writer’s block for two years, reports on the trial of Hans Reiser, a computer programmer charged with killing the wife he met through a Russian dating service. Elliot’s writings fueled by the drug Adderall (hence the title) affects his stream of consciousness and his written prose, thus allowing him to veer into subjects like his cruel upbringing, Paris Hilton and S&M.
This sounds like quite the ambitious project for Franco who, in addition to filming Saturday Night did the 2005 film The Ape. Just thinking how the film will change with Elliot’s stream of consciousness has my interest piqued.
Currently Franco’s getting kudos for his performance as Aron Ralston in Danny Boyle’s 127 Hours. And he’s in the midst of filming 20th Century Fox’s big budget Planet of the Apes prequel Rise of the Apes which arrives in theaters June 24, 2011.
