James Franco directing real-life stripper Twitter tale

James Franco at Hulu TCA winter press tour, 2016

by James White |
Published on
James Franco at Hulu TCA winter press tour, 2016
©Rachel Murray / Getty

Just when you thought James Franco couldn't add another directing job to his already bulging To Do list he goes and confounds that idea. He's developing a wild true-life tale called Zola Tells All as a potential new movie.

It all springs from a Rolling Stone article (one you can read here) that chronicled stripper Aziah "Zola" Wells' epic, tragic and weird road trip trip to Florida. Her tale was originally chronicled via her Twitter account, with 148 tweets spilling a story of meeting a woman named Jessica while working at Hooters in Detroit and heading to Florida with her, Jessica's boyfriend and Jessica's pimp, named only as "Z". Their trip devolves into a terrifying tale of prostitution, violence and crazed behaviour. And, yes, there have already been people making fake movie trailers for the idea. Franco, however, is thinking bigger.

Andrew Neel and Mike Roberts are attached to write the script, which sounds a little like an even stranger take on Spring Breakers, Harmony Korine's 2012 film that just so happened to feature one James Franco. Right now, however, the prolific actor/writer/producer/director/poet etc. is busy making his latest film The Disaster Artist, which follows another real life tale, the making of so-bad-it's-fun cult classic The Room.

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