Lit Reactor today brings news that Fight Club author Chuck Palahniuk’s 2007 novel Rant is to be adapted for the screen by actor/director James Franco (Spider-Man, Pineapple Express), who has picked up the rights.
The author is quoted as saying: “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.”
After Fight Club in 1999 and the under-rated Choke in 2008 (which starred Rockwell), this will be the third of Palahniuk’s novels to be brought to the screen. It will also mark another book-adaptation directorial job for Franco, who is making a habit of adapting famous novels, including 2013 effort As I Lay Dying, the upcoming The Sound and The Fury (which was shown at this years Toronto International Film Festival), Zeroville, which he is working on currently, and the soon to be made adaptation of Greg Sestero’s The Disaster Artist, based on the making of cult classic The Room.
Palahniuk’s original novel 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.”