James Franco confirmed he is "developing" a superhero character.
The 39-year-old actor is reportedly in negotiations to play Multiple Man in a new standalone movie being developed by producer Simon Kinberg – who is currently working on ‘X-Men: The Dark Phoenix’.
And now, in an with The Hollywood Reporter, Franco confirmed his superhero alter ego is in "early stages" but didn’t reveal who he is supposedly set to bring to the big screen.
Franco said: "I do have a superhero that I am developing. I don’t know how much I can say. But I will say I am producing and performing in it. It’s early stages. I think probably what I can say is, like anything, there’s a need to develop more."
The film will reportedly be penned by ‘Wonder Woman’ scribe Allan Heinberg and will be produced by Kinberg under his Genre Films label and Franco’s Ramona Films.
Franco also said he loves what Kinberg, Fox and ‘X-Men’ have done with films such as ‘Deadpool’ and ‘Logan’ and hints his superhero movie will follow the success of the R-rated movies.
He said: "Our bottom line MO is, how can we push this into new ground? A little bit, but still make it entertaining? But what I love about what Simon Kinberg and Fox and the ‘X-Men’ people have done with ‘Deadpool and ‘Logan’ – it took a while to get there, maybe 10 years – but they are going to go hard R.
"And we’re going to take this superhero thing and really just push it into a new genre. So we’re working with Simon Kinberg on an ‘X-Men’ property."
Multiple Man, also called James Madrox, was created by writer Len Wein and first appeared in ‘Giant -Size Fantastic Four #4’ in 1975.
The hero has the ability to create instant duplicates of himself and was mainly a minor or supporting character until he appeared in the 1987 mini comic book series ‘Fallen Angels’, which was team of teenage superheroes.
Multiple Man underwent greater development under writer Peter David through the monthly series ‘X-Factor’ in the 1990s and in the 2000s.
James Franco developing X-Men superhero
