As part of YouTube’s “Comedy Week,” Zach Galifianakis held a very special edition of his Funny or Die web series Between Two Ferns which starts out like a regular James Franco interview but then gets weird real quick. Lonely Island and Edward Norton co-star, which is great, because we haven’t seen those guys in forever.

Here is the first trailer for As I Lay Dying.

James Franco has signed to star in director Wim Wenders’ 3D project Everything Will Be Fine.

Franco will play a writer who accidentally causes the death of a child in the story that follows him over the next 12 years as he looks for the footprints of the accident on his life, as well as on the life of the child’s mother.

Gian-Piero Ringel will produce the 3D movie through his and Wenders’ production banner Neue Road Movies.

Production is scheduled to begin on location in Montreal in August.

The screenplay is by Norwegian writer Bjorn-Olaf Johannessen.

Jeremy Thomas’ U.K.-based sales and finance banner HanWay Films will handle international sales and tout Wenders’ vision to buyers at the upcoming Marche du Film.

Wenders described the project as “a family drama, unraveling over the course of twelve years.”

The iconic director said the script has been written with 3D in mind, “and I’m convinced that the medium lends itself really well to an intimate story.”

Franco is currently shooting True Story opposite Jonah Hill for 20th Century Fox.

Wenders’ last film, the Oscar-nominated hit Pina, grossed north of $30 million worldwide.

Franco is repped by Kami Putnam-Heist at CAA and Miles D. Levy at James/Levy Management.

HanWay Films’ current sales slate also includes Jim Jarmusch’s Cannes Competition entry Only Lovers Left Alive, starring Tilda Swinton, Tom Hiddleston and Mia Wasikowska, and James Toback’s Seduced and Abandoned.

It will also be selling the updated version of Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor 3D to buyers after it unspools as a Cannes special.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter

James served as Grand Marshal at this year’s Daytona 500. You can check out photos in the gallery as well as videos from the event below.

GALLERY LINK:
- Appearances > 2013 > 55th Daytona 500

GALLERY LINK:
- Magazine Scans > Scans from 2013 > Man Of The World
- Photoshoots > Outtakes > 2013 > Session #003

We should have some sort of saying, a catch phrase we use to communicate the particular head-scratching pause we can experience on watching James Franco pilot his odd and wonderful career. “Ah, Franco,” maybe, when he seems to be purposefully failing to live up to our notions of a movie star. Or, “That’s Just James being James,” when, at the height of his bankability, he does 54 episodes of General Hospital, drops a short story collection, or takes time off to add yet another string to his triple-necked dilettante guitar.

We’d need a lot of lateral room in the saying, room enough to accommodate the whoa-factor of his Oscar-nominated performance in 127 Hours, and for the huh? when he sleepwalks through those Academy Awards, while hosting. Who else among the A-list elicits such a spectrum of interest and response? Who else, for that matter, looks to be enjoying themselves so thoroughly?

Could it be that Franco is our 21st Century court jester, trolling us all, and satirizing celebrity-industrial complex, or is he simply a playful and inquisitive 34-year-old PhD with stacks of cash to fund his continuing education? Is he really that blasé, walking through life the way he does a red carpet, blissed-out, not a care in the world, or is that carpet in fact his real stage, and fame this multi-hyphenate performer’s real medium?

Click here to read the rest.

James Franco has confessed he used to be extremely difficult to be around.

The actor has taken up interests such as painting and writing poetry and short stories outside of his Hollywood career.

James used to put too much pressure on his acting, which made him difficult to be around on movie sets.

“On the outside it seemed like I had a good life. But I wasn’t happy with who I was. Part of that was because of my on-set behaviour: making movies started to be very unpleasant both for me and the people I worked with,” James admitted to British newspaper The Telegraph.

“Because acting was my only professional outlet, I put a ton of pressure on the roles that I did. I overstepped my bounds, I tried to control things that were out of my purview as an actor and in some cases even tried to direct my scenes because I felt I knew how they should run rather than trust the director.”

The 34-year-old decided to go back to school and study for a master’s degree. He now teaches classes himself and says these new methods of expressing himself have made him happier.

“I went back to school and it opened up all these other outlets. [Am I happier now?] Incredibly. A million times more,” James smiled.

“After 16 years in the business, I’ve come to understand success in a different way. I think I have had a change of heart and changed the way I do things.”

Click here to read the rest.

The next stop for the Oz promo tour was Tokyo, Japan on February 20. James attended the premiere alongside director Sam Rami and co-star Rachel Rachel Weisz. Several photos from the premiere as well as James arriving in Japan have been added to the gallery.

GALLERY LINK:
- Appearances > 2013 > ‘Oz: the Great and Powerful’ Japan Premiere
- Candids > 2013 > February 19 – Arriving in Tokyo

James is on the cover of various magazines this month to promote the release of Oz: The Great and Powerful. Here’s three of them.

GALLERY LINKS:
- Magazine Scans > Scans from 2013 > Cineplex (March)
- Magazine Scans > Scans from 2013 > Attitude
- Magazine Scans > Scans from 2013 > Telegraph Seven

If anyone has these issues and would like to donate scans, you can send them via email to james.franco.com@gmail.com!

Back on February 13, James arrived in style (via hot air balloon) to the Los Angeles premiere (the first of many premieres) of Oz: The Great and Powerful. Photos of James walking the Yellow Brick Road have been added to the gallery.

GALLERY LINK:
- Appearances > 2013 > “OZ The Great And Powerful” – Los Angeles Premiere – Arrivals

And here are some red carpet videos.

Here’s a quick roundup of several video interviews of James from the Oz: The Great and Powerful press junket.