Just a few short years ago James Franco was being lauded for his work in The Disaster Artist, which earned him a Golden Globe for his portrayal of legendary filmmaker and possible alien Tommy Wiseau. But now Franco has found himself in the middle of a disaster of his own, as his latest film Zeroville is bombing hard at the box office.
Zeroville, according to the Wrap, is currently the biggest box office bomb in Franco’s career, managing to do financially worse than Franco’s previous movies Child of God and The Vault. The movie was released in just 80 theaters and has only managed to earn less than $9,000 (averaging about $111 per screen).
The production for Zeroville was troubled from the start. Apparently the movie was filmed five years ago and was initially going to be distributed by Alchemy, but when Alchemy went bankrupt in 2015 Zeroville got put on hold.
This movie was a passion project for Franco. Not only did he direct the movie but he starred in it as well. Zeroville is an adaptation of a Steve Erickson’s book of the same name, which follows an architecture student named Ike, played by Franco, who finds himself in Hollywood where he becomes a movie editor nicknamed the Vikar. Besides Franco, the movie’s other cast members include Megan Fox, Jacki Weaver, Will Ferrell, and Franco’s regular collaborators Seth Rogen and Danny McBride.