James Franco and Seth Rogen, the creative duo behind such cult comedy hits as The Interview and This is the End, are Hollywood bound in the first trailer for Zeroville, a biting satirical period romp hailing from Franco himself.
It’s pitched as his most ambitious directorial effort to date, and after clocking eyes on the extensive first trailer, we’re inclined to believe those claims. Featuring a host of regular faces in Jacki Weaver, Megan Fox, Craig Robinson, Will Ferrell and Danny McBride, Zeroville is set against the Tinsel Town of ’69 where Ike “Vikar” Jerome starts out on a journey that offers up tragedy and discovery in equal measure.
Placing a laser focus on celebrity culture and all things Hollywood, Seth Rogen is on board as a character known as Viking Man – “gatekeeper to all the right parties, a cigar-chomping surf hippie; Vikar’s eccentric Hollywood guide” – while the casting sheet reveals the larger-than-life personalities of Rondell, (Will Ferrell, Dotty (Jacki Weaver), Financier (Danny McBride) and femme fatale Soledad (Megan Fox). There’s also a Wim Wenders cameo buried in today’s first-look.
Zeroville is still seeking for US distribution, and we’ll be keeping track as James Franco’s quest continues.
A proto-punk Forrest Gump comes to Hollywood…. Join VIKAR (James Franco), a wide-eyed innocent in love with the movies, on one wicked trip to the heart of a pulsating, kaleidoscopic Hollywood. Naïve newcomer to the City of Angels, carrying nothing but his “outsider” past and a huge tattoo of Montgomery Clift & Elizabeth Taylor inked on his shaved skull; driven by the allure of cinema to the glittering temptations of Zeroville; a town where anything goes. Profoundly magical, funny, unsettling, and gorgeous – a love letter to Los Angeles and provocative satire of America’s fascination with itself, its cult of celebrity; a vision of the death of Old Hollywood.