By Romeo San Vicente
'King Cobra' will bring you porn, murder and James Franco
James Franco, in his seemingly never-ending quest to confer gayness upon himself via association, is producing what is sure to be a shocker of a movie called King Cobra. The film, directed by Justin Kelly – who also worked with Franco on the upcoming I Am Michael – will tell the ugly story of the 2007 murder of gay adult film producer Bryan Kocis, who had worked with gay porn star Brent Corrigan. Franco will act in the film, alongside Christian Slater (who'll play Kocis), Molly Ringwald and Disney Channel's Teen Beach and Teen Beach 2 alum Garrett Clayton as Corrigan. That last bit of casting makes perfect sense in a Vanessa-Hudgens-and-Selena-Gomez-starring-in- Spring Breakers way. Can't wait for this one to make us all feel creepy and upset.
'Bear With' Cheyenne Jackson and Lea DeLaria
Perhaps shockingly, the upcoming film "Bear With Us," starring Cheyenne Jackson, has absolutely nothing to do with "bears" as they are commonly understood in the complex taxonomy of gay subcultures. No, this horror comedy is about an actual bear. An actual angry, murderous and hungry bear that happens upon a charming cabin in the woods where a couple is getting engaged. The official word is "think "Jaws," with a bear," but knowledgeable fans of killer animal movies know better: think 'Grizzly,' that 1976 ripoff of "Jaws" about a giant ursine killer, or, in the words of that cheap B-movie's lurid ad campaign, "18 feet of gut-crunching, man-eating terror." Come to think of it, "Grizzly" was kind of a horror comedy, too. Anyway, "Bear With Us," from indie filmmaker William J. Stribling, is currently in production, and will also feature – although we don't know exactly what this means at the moment – "the voice of" "Orange is The New Black" star Lea DeLaria. Mysterious.
Gay spying on Ben Whishaw
"London Spy," airing very soon in the U.K. on the BBC, sounds like just the ticket for all the "Sherlock" fans out there. Bond film regular Whishaw plays a gay young man deeply involved in London nightlife, who then finds himself in an unlikely romantic relationship with a man from the British Secret Intelligence Service (Edward Holcroft, from "Kingsman: The Secret Service"). When that man dies, Whishaw's character is whisked into the world of espionage to uncover the truth. The five-part miniseries was written by gay writer Tom Rob Smith and is directed by Jakob Verbruggen ("The Fall"). Right now the show is mentioned on BBC America's website, but no dates are set. That means it's time to begin politely pestering them.
YouTube stars hit 'Dirty Thirty'
We don't know if you're allowed to be a YouTube sensation after 30, but if all goes as planned, the trio of Hannah Hart, Mamrie Hart and Grace Helbig will have moved on to bigger things when their next film, "Dirty Thirty," is digitally released by Lionsgate. The YouTube stars – lesbian comic Hannah Hart's "My Drunk Kitchen" is a favorite there – have already had a streaming hit with "Camp Takota," so Lionsgate decided to snap them up for this next project, which is about a birthday party gone wild. There's no other information available yet, but the pattern of millennial female comics using the Internet to launch themselves is set thanks to breakout hits like "Broad City," and this feels like the beginning of big things for these young women. The countdown to more famous funny people jumping on their bandwagon begins now.
