New Trailer for James Franco's Adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's 'Child of God'

Say what you will about James Franco the thespian, as a filmmaker he's one of the most ambitious in all of Hollywood. Granted, most of these challenging projects haven't exactly turned out all that well, but one still has to admire his ambition to adapt William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying, or helm a biopic on Hart Crane, or go full-on experimental with Interior. Leather Bar. His latest uphill climb sees Franco bringing Cormac McCarthy's novel Child of God to the screen, and after playing the festival circuit for awhile a new trailer signals its upcoming theatrical release.

Franco actually plays a very small role in the film, instead turning over the role of feral drifter Lester Ballard over to theater actor, Scott Haze. And it's a part that asks Haze to basically transform into an animal as Lester is a man who doesn't even acknowledge a social order exists. He lives on the fringes and indulges in crimes of varying degrees, from thievery to murder to far worse. Many have tried and failed to adapt Child of God and even though Franco got it done the film was definitely not a success, saying in my Virginia Film Festival review it "works on the page solely due to McCarthy's distinctive prose, but without it the story is pretty drab".

Also starring Tim Blake Nelson and Jim Parrack, Child of God opens later this year.