James Franco to play Multiple Man in upcoming movie

From Entertainment Weekly:

James Franco likes to multiply himself. Back in March 2015, he interviewed himself for Four Two Nine magazine, splitting himself into a “Straight James” and a “Gay James.” More recently, in HBO’s The Deuce, he played two different characters, the identical twin brothers Vincent and Frankie Martino. But now the Franco clones are about to increase exponentially. EW has confirmed that the star of The Disaster Artist is in negotiations to play Multiple Man, a Marvel mutant from the X-Men universe with the ability to clone himself, in a new solo film of the same name. Deadline first reported the news.

According to Deadline‘s report, Multiple Man could also include a script by Allan Heinberg (Wonder Woman) and production from X-Men movie maestro Simon Kinberg, who’s also directing X-Men: Dark Phoenix. The film would focus on Jamie Madrox, a mutant with the ability to duplicate himself. Over the years this has proved an incredibly useful power, since Madrox can re-absorb his duplicates and gain all the memories they experienced during their independence. Sometimes this comes with complications, however; Peter David’s run on X-Factor revealed that Madrox’s duplicates sometimes manifest different aspects of his personality, from meek to nefarious.

Source: Entertainment Weekly

Commentary: Multiple Man actually starred in the first X-Men related comic I owned.  I doubt she even remembers this, but in 8th grade a friend of mine bought me a handful of random comics for Christmas. One of those comics happened to be X-FACTOR #74.  I was immediately in love with that book and writer Peter David.  From them on, I bought anything X-Men related, not to mention anything Peter David wrote.  In a lot of ways, this random act of kindness reshaped my whole life.  Peter David got me interested in writing myself, and a shared love of his work also broke the ice between me and this cute girl I met in High School....22 years later, we are happily married and have three children.

I was already excited that we were getting a NEW MUTANTS movie, but now add in a MULTIPLE MAN movie too!  It amazes me how many doors movies like DEADPOOL, LOGAN, and GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY have opened up.  It is just great to see so many different characters and ideas being represented.  I would have never in a million years expected to see a MULTIPLE MAN movie.  I am hoping they do it with some detective noir like the MADROX mini-series, but I am genuinely open to whatever they do with it.

I have no particularly strong feelings about James Franco as Multiple Man.  I have liked him in the movies I've seen him in, and he seems quirky enough to pull off multiple versions of the same character.  I will say that my all time favorite James Franco moment may be singing "It's the end of the year as we know it" with Stephen Colbert and Michael Stipe: