“Rant: The Oral Biography Buster Casey” has been that novel that has sat in the back of my brain since the first time I read it in 2007. I secretly dreaded the day it would be adapted into film (I always knew the day would come) because I didn’t want such a great time travel novel to be ruined. And now the day HAS come and it has been announced that actor JAMES FRANCO will be the one to do the adapting. Yeah.
Author of the novel, Chuck Palahniuk announced the news today. He said,
“As of last night we’ve finalized a deal for James Franco to option my novel ‘Rant.’ Details about the casting, shooting and a proposed release date will be forthcoming. Hurray. After the opportunity to work with Brad Pitt, Edward Norton and Sam Rockwell, I can’t imagine a more exciting actor to work with than Franco.”
“Rant” is officially described as follows:
“Buster ‘Rant’ Casey just may be the most efficient serial killer of our time. A high school rebel, Rant Casey escapes from his small town home for the big city where he becomes the leader of an urban demolition derby called Party Crashing. Rant Casey will die a spectacular highway death, after which his friends gather the testimony needed to build an oral history of his short, violent life.”
Two other novels written by Palahniuk have previously been made into films: 1999’s Fight Club and 2008’s Choke. I remain hesitant about “Rant” being added to the list. Time travel novels are notoriously difficult to adapt into films successfully and I have an unnatural love for this one in particular. There are a lot of moving parts in this story that I do not want to see left out and/or disrupted in process of transferring to a different medium.
This is not to say that Franco is not a good director. He recently adapted “As I Lay Dying” in 2013 and has a forthcoming film titled The Sound and the Fury. He also just started film his third directing project Zeroville.
