James Franco has signed on to direct the Zola stripper film, Deadline reports.
For those not familiar with Zola the stripper’s epic tale of a Florida road trip gone badly wrong, you can check out the ‘kind of long but full of suspense’ story here. Zola – real name Aziah King – tweeted out the details of her road trip with Jess, ‘a white bitch’ she met at Hooters, in over 150 tweets. If you haven’t read it, it’s like reading an early Tarantino proof, written in stripper slang and conveyed in 140 character bursts.
After Zola’s Twitter travelogue went viral, Rolling Stone published an inside account of the road trip, which will be used as the basis for Franco’s film. It’s worth pointing out that although Zola’s story (which was dubbed #TheStory and trended on Twitter for days) is darkly funny, it’s also totally fucked up – essentially we’re reading about women being exploited and trafficked for sex.
Franco for his part has been busy recently, signing on for a new period porn drama for HBO and announcing that he’s going to release an album about The Smiths. Luckily, if Franco’s looking for inspiration for who to cast in the Zola film, Dazed pre-empted this months ago and has put together a handy guide. You're welcome, James. Read it here.