MovieChat Forums > The Disaster Artist (2017) Discussion > I'm a little disappointed with James Fra...

I'm a little disappointed with James Franco involvement

posted 9 years ago by diewgong
10 replies | jump to latest

A lot of the funny "absurd" in the book comes from the fact that Tommy and Greg friendship is weird because Greg is a extremely handsome model, while Tommy seems to be a little bit old, creepy, odd-looking guy, and there's no way it will work with James and Dave Franco

- They're actually very similar, I can't see them as "friends" and not brothers
- James is very taller than Dave Franco, in real life (Greg and Tommy) it's the opposite
- Dave is not particularly good-looking not even James is particularly weird or ugly

Imagine scenes like Tommy deciding to be a underwear model just because Greg is, there's no way for this to don't be 100% nonsense, when you imagine the real situation you can just imagine the absurd of TOMMY trying to be a model, but imagine James Franco doing this and you'll just see and say "nothing wrong with that, James is handsome, he could be a model if he wanted to"

I'm not convinced you can compensate that with "acting", "characterization", when you're not right for the project, you're just not right, David Fincher changed Reese Witherspoon to Rosamund Pike in "Gone Girl" and made a great decision, Reese as producer just accepted that

James Franco is being a director since 2005 and ALL his movies was commercial flops, and generally disliked by both critics and audience, I simply can't understand how he insists to keep working, he already adapted some good books and the results was atrocious

[–] jpowers4667 9 years ago

Who cares who is taller in real life? Why does every single thing have to be so exact? These are trivial details that the general public will not care about...at all.

[–] danielgilbert42 9 years ago

In general yes, movies should vary from their books but looks and features were very important to Tommy. His inferiority complex was actually a big part of their relationship.

[–] 9 years ago

[deleted]

[–] Penske_Material 9 years ago

Lmao I wish I could upvote comments here

[–] mrrockey 9 years ago

Agreed, James is completely miscast in the role. Not only does he not resemble Tommy on any level, he also just isn't a diverse enough actor. This is a role that requires an actor to completely dedicate himself to the part, to completely transform himself, Franco simply isn't that type. I haven't seen anything he's directed so I have no idea whether or not will he direct it well, though.

[–] diewgong 9 years ago

According that what I was seeing of photos, seems like James Franco is "having fun" with that, like he's mocking Tommy while "impersonate" him, the actual poster Tommy is very serious but in the "poster representation" they did James is with a smile on his face, you need more than that if you're doing a serious representation

This is already looking more like a SNL / Funny or Die sketch than an actual movie

[–] trekkie313 9 years ago

Tommy himself stated that Franco was one of the few people who could play him.

Listen, do you smell something? -Ray Stantz

[–] diewgong 9 years ago

I don't know but I don't think this is a guarantee this will be good

[–] mrrockey 9 years ago

Because Tommy himself demonstrated such a deep understanding of acting in his brilliant, tour-de-force performance as Johnny in The Room, right?

[–] ShellOilJunior 9 years ago

Nothing a little slouching and a lumpy suit cannot fix.