James Franco Won’t Rest Until Another Stephen King Adaptation Gets Made

by Nick Politan

The moon will wax and wane, the sun will (also) rise, taxes will come due, and Stephen King will have another of his works adapted for the screen. These are the inevitable forces of our world. The author’s 2015 short story “Drunken Fireworks” is now set to be taken to the big screen after having been picked up by Rabbitt Bandini Productions and Rubicon Entertainment, according to reports from Deadline. You may have heard of Rabbitt Bandini before. Their notable productions include topless-Matthew McConaughey in Fool’s Gold, cult-favorite Spring Breakers, the ambitious Faulkner sojourn As I Lay Dying, and 2013’s Palo Alto. If you’re sensing a trend… the common link, of course, is stage-soap opera-actor-student-teacher-McDonalds cashier-writer-poet-producer James Franco. (Rabbit Bandini is his production company.)

Franco, famous for an inexhaustible number of reasons, is set to star in the new King project. (He recently worked on the generally well-received 11.22.63 adaptation for Hulu.) “Drunken Fireworks,” in typical King fashion, is a dark and quirky tale. A fireworks competition splinters life in a small town in rural Maine. Local Alden McCausland (to be played by Franco) finds himself embroiled in a strange and increasingly hostile rivalry with a retired mob boss who’s recently moved into the area. As Wendeline O. Wright puts it, “bottle rockets make bad neighbors.”

No word yet on who will direct. Maybe Franco will try his hand?