Franco To “Howl” Next Month
“Howl,” starring James Franco (left) as American poet Allen Ginsberg (right), with begin filming March 16 in New York City. “Howl” centers on the obscenity trial over Allen Ginsberg’s poem of the same name, as well as an animated reimagining of the poem itself. Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman of Telling Pictures will direct and co-produce from their own screenplay. Gus Van Sant exec produces. As he showed in “Milk,” where he played Sean Penn’s lover, Franco can be a fine, sensitive actor, and his real-life interest in poetry and fiction makes him a natural to play a writer. On the other hand, Franco is a beauty and Ginsberg, even young, was not. (He was a horny bastard who got studs like Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady to have sex with him.) I hope “Howl” has a really good makeup team.
