In HBO’s The Deuce, James Franco plays both Frankie and Vincent Martino, a bit that would be a gimmick in any other show, but fades away as you watch. It’s an impressive pair of performances on Franco’s part, and it may have led to one of the more unusual superhero movie rumors we’ve heard. Namely, that Fox wants Franco to be himself in an X-Men movie. A lot of himself.
The Hollywood Reporter reveals that Fox is trying to entice Franco to play Jamie Madrox, the Multiple Man, who spawns a new copy of himself every time he gets hit and can reabsorb them at will:
The multi-hyphenate is negotiations to play Multiple Man in a stand-alone being developed by X-Men producer Simon Kinberg, godfather of Fox’s universe based on the Marvel mutants. Allan Heinberg, one of the writers behind Warner Bros.’ Wonder Woman, is set to pen the feature. Kinberg would produce under his Genre Films label, along with Franco and his Ramona Films.
Madrox’s ability to be everywhere at once (not to mention win any bar fight) comes with a pretty big limiting factor: Each duplicate foregrounds a different facet of his personality. So in some respect, he’s shuffling the deck with every double. In the comics, for example, Jamie spawns a double who’s openly gay, and calls him on his homophobia right before Jamie puts him back on the shelf. Of course, this also allows him to, say, go to a dozen different colleges at the same time, or send one of himself off to explore the world; he reabsorbs any information or talents his doubles pick up. So his life is a balancing act, with a legion of opportunities but also plenty of awkward questions he has to face about himself.
Of course, it’s also pretty on-brand for Franco to star in a movie where he’s got all the speaking roles. So of all the unusual superhero movie ideas, this is the one that might well actually happen.
(via The Hollywood Reporter)