In Dubious Battle:James Franco takes John Steinbeck to the Venice Film Festival

James Franco has another classic adaptation in the works. In Dubious Battle based on the John Steinbeck novel, deals with struggling fruit workers in central California in the 1930’s and the efforts by union organizers to assist the striking fruit pickers. 

Have you read the book? If the film is as good as the trailer we have a real treat, with depth and substance, in store. I have to say James Franco, while he doesn’t always hit it out of the park, is a mighty impressive guy. Driven, the widely read Franco has a genuine passion for literature—when my husband worked with him on Tristan and Isolde over a dozen years ago, Franco kept gifting him with books he loved, from Chandler to Bukowski, and scrawled other book recommendations on the flyleaf —he’s tireless in the pursuit of his art. And very hard to keep up with!

In Dubious Battle was adapted by frequent Franco collaborator Matt Rager and boasts what you could call a star-studded cast: in addition to Franco who also directs, Nat Wolff (in what appears to be a break out performance) Bryan Cranston, Selena Gomez, Ed Harris, Vincent D'Onofrio, Robert Duvall, Zach Braf, Josh Hutcherson and John Savage.

In Dubious Battle is supposed to come out sometime in 2016 but no official date has been set. We’ll see if the film comes out of Venice with a hard and fast date.

Check out the trailer