A couple of weeks ago, it was revealed that James Franco was returning to the superhero genre – after playing Harry Osborn in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy – to star in a new Fox project based around Jamie Madrox AKA Multiple Man. The film was said to be another spinoff of the X-Men franchise, following Deadpool, Logan and the upcoming New Mutants.
While talking with The Hollywood Reporter in a recent interview, Franco was on hand to elaborate on the thinking behind the pic. Though he stopped short of confirming that he would be playing the titular character, his talk of working with producer Simon Kinberg and the X-Men movie team all but confirms it. He also revealed that the film would be another R-rated venture for the franchise.
“I do have a superhero that I am developing. I don’t know how much I can say. But I will say I am producing and performing in it. It’s early stages. I think probably what I can say is, like anything, there’s a need to develop more. Our bottom line MO is, how can we push this into new ground? A little bit, but still make it entertaining? [But] what I love about what Simon Kinberg and Fox and the X-Men people have done with Deadpool and Logan, it took a while to get there, maybe 10 years, but they are going to go hard R. And we’re going to take this superhero thing and really just push it into a new genre. So we’re working with Simon Kinberg on an X-Men property.”
For those not in the know, Multiple Man – as his name suggests – has the power to create copies of himself. X-Men fans may remember that Jamie Madrox previously appeared in a minor role as one of Magneto’s Brotherhood in 2006’s X-Men: The Last Stand, as played by Eric Dane. Thanks to the Days of Future Past rewrite, though, any character from the original trilogy is now free to be recast.
At first glance, Multiple Man might sound like a weird choice of character to build a mature comic book film around. However, it’s likely that Franco’s movies won’t look to his costumed adventures for inspiration but rather his turn as a private detective in his solo series titled Madrox. After all, the actor also mentions pushing the X-Men universe into a new genre, suggesting that his film might be a detective or crime story.
James Franco will star in and produce Multiple Man, with Wonder Woman‘s Allan Heinberg on hand to turn in the script. There’s been no word yet on when we can expect the movie to multiply into theaters, but stay tuned for more.