For your “huh?” moment of the week, we bring you the news that James Franco’s adaptation of The Sound and the Fury will co-star none other than Seth Rogen and Danny McBride—Franco’s co-stars from the pot-themed action comedy Pineapple Express.
Of course, it’s no secret that Franco loves him some Faulkner. He’s already been responsible for countless facepalm moments on the part of readers when he adapted As I Lay Dying. But with his adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s Child of God, I’d finally resigned myself to the fact that we’d probably see a Franco-helmed adaptation of a male-written modernist novel every couple years or so.
But nothing prepared me for the idea of seeing Rogen and McBride in an adaptation of Faulkner. Up until now, their main claim to fame has been making jokes as part of Apatow & company’s Frat Pack. I have great affection for both actors, don’t get me wrong, and both may have unplumbed dramatic depths that we will finally discover in Franco’s film. We shall see.
But for now, the whole thing is a reminder of why the prospect of James Franco adapting Faulkner was so grating in the first place. The Sound and the Fury is such an experimental, nontraditional novel that the wisdom of turning it into a movie in the first place is doubtful. Now you’re telling me I’m going to see two charter members of the Frat Pack in it, too?
Weird.
