Yes, James Franco, Seth Rogen, and Danny McBride are in a new movie together. However, for those expecting another Pineapple Express or This is the End, you may leave disappointed. The Franco-directed adaptation of William Faulkner‘s The Sound and the Fury premiered at Venice Film Festival last year and now it’s finally getting a theatrical release.
Also starring Jacob Loeb, Ahna O’Reilly, Tim Blake Nelson, Joey King and Loretta Devine, the film follows the lives and passions of the Compsons, a once proud Southern family caught in a tragic spiral of loss and misfortune. While it’s already been in limited release for a little bit, the first trailer has now dropped, which gives us a glimpse at Franco’s passion project and his second Faulkner adaptation following As I Lay Dying, as well as a heavy dose of the Beasts of the Southern Wild score.
Check it out below, after Franco’s quote from Vulture on why he continues to re-team with the same collaborators.
That idea was always appealing to me. The legends of sort of [Martin] Scorsese and [Robert] De Niro starting out together and making all those great movies together, that was always appealing, that model. Or [John] Cassavetes working with his wife and [Ben] Gazzara and Seymour Cassel, he was in a bunch of them. So that was always appealing, and now that I do have that sort of acting troupe or acting company, there are great things about it. Actors have a way of working, directors have a way of working, and once you do a movie with somebody, your different approaches find a common ground, and it either works or it doesn’t. With these people, it definitely works. I know what the actors need, and they know what I’m expecting. It’s great for that reason, but also, these movies are made in a particular way. They’re artistic ventures, they’re not superhero movies. We don’t have tons of money because we’re trying to do (a) Faulkner adaptations, and (b) very stylistic movies that are very unconventional. Since we don’t have that much money we have to go very fast, so I need people who can do that, and I know that these people can and can do good work despite those conditions.
The Sound and the Fury is a film based on the Nobel Prize winning book of the same name published in 1929 set in Jefferson, Mississippi. The novel centers around the Compson Family, former Southern aristocrats who are struggling to deal with the dissolution of their family and its reputation. Over the course of thirty years, the family falls into financial ruin, loses its religious faith and the respect of the town of Jefferson. Many of them die tragically.
The Sound and the Fury is now in limited release.