At the rate he’s going with the novel adaptations, James Franco will be making movies from health and safety leaflets found in NHS waiting rooms before too long. He has another novel in development, collaborating with Ahna O’Reilly on **The Killer Next Door.
Alex Marwood’s murder mystery, which hit bookshops last year, finds six seemingly disparate neighbours forced into an uneasy alliance, little realising that one of them is a murderer willing to do anything to keep his secret.
It feels a little different from the stories Franco has been adapting of late, which is probably why he and O’Reilly chose it. He’s worked on films based on John Steinbeck and William Faulkner books and William Gay’s coming-of-age tale The Long Home. Chances are he’ll end up directing and potentially starring in the film. O’Reilly has been appeared in several of the adaptations and may well show up in this one, given her connection to it.
Franco, in addition to his recent adaptations, will appear in True Story alongside Jonah Hill, which is out in the UK this week. O’Reilly is in indie comedy No Way Jose and thriller Sleepwalker.