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Although the idea of the mockbuster has recently taken on heretofore unseen proportions with indie studio The Asylum releasing shit like Snakes on a Train to capitalize on significantly higher-budgeted flicks, it’s an idea that’s practically as old as Hollywood itself. Take any genre or setting that was popular and you’ll find it has lots of scuzzier, cheaper imitators lying in its wake. Bonnie and Clyde spawned an enormous amount of period gangster pieces; Clerks made it possible for semi-talented schlubs around the world to make 90-minute dick joke compilations. This whole thing ended up hitting kind of a snag when superhero movies became popular. First off, they’re based on existing properties that could easily put you in murky legal waters if you ripped ‘em off. Secondly, they’re pretty much all amongst the most expensive movies ever made. Even a team as ambitious in its pursuits as the Asylum crew would be hard-pressed to fake their way around the expansive world-building of Spider-Man, for example. Yet this didn’t stop prolific DTV producer Patrick Durham from making his directorial debut on a dubiously Green Latern-like flick made for approximately 1% of the blockbuster’s (admittedly out-of-control) budget and substituting 2011’s hottest property (Ryan Reynolds) with 1995’s hottest property (Brian Austin Green).

How do you think it worked out? Read the rest of this entry »

This was originally pitched by Franco as the ending for Rise of the Planet of the Apes. It was not used.

When James Franco announced a few months back that he was tackling adaptations of both Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying and Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian as writer and director, the general consensus was a surprising “why not?”. Despite the overwhelming odds that faced Franco (both are considered impossible-to-adapt works and both have been tackled unsuccessfully several times in the past), no one seemed to think that Franco wasn’t up to the task. And why wouldn’t he be? Over the last couple of years, Franco has managed to get several degrees, publish a book of short stories, teach a class at NYU, have at least one art show of his work, host the Academy Awards, direct a documentary about Saturday Night Live and make recurring appearances on General Hospital while also starring in movies that run the gamut from the very serious (127 Hours) to the very dumb (Your Highness).

But apart from his supernatural proficiency at juggling what amounts to basically five lives, there wasn’t much in Franco’s oeuvre that suggested he could actually write and direct a narrative feature film. His extensive portfolio features documentaries and prominent experimental shorts (like the ones he made to coincide with R.E.M.’s last album) but nothing nearly as ambitious as Blood Meridian. What few know is that Franco already has four features under his belt; the only one that has seen any kind of home-video release thus far, however, is his second effort: 2005’s The Ape, a straight-to-DVD release that features Franco rolling his eyes at a gorilla wearing a Hawaiian shirt on the cover. Read the rest of this entry »