Franco as Ginsberg

Here's some unexpected queer cinema scoop from Comic-Con, of all places. While promoting his next movie Pineapple Express, James Franco revealed to MTV News that he has been cast as legendary "Beat Generation" poet Allen Ginsberg in Howl, an upcoming documentary by the award winning team of Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman.

Considering that it is a documentary, I'm not exactly sure how Franco could "play" Ginsberg; perhaps in reenactments and/or voice-overs. Interestingly enough, this will be the second time this year in which Franco went "gay for pay" on film. He will also portray Scott Smith, Harvey Milk's lover, in Gus Van Sant's biopic Milk, due this December.

Epstein and Friedman are no doubt familiar to Movie Dearest readers as the creators of such seminal gay docs as The Celluloid Closet, Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt and, ironically, The Times of Harvey Milk. The latter two films won Academy Awards.