Great Casting or Best Casting? James Franco to Play Pick-Up Artist Mystery in The Game

Happy Friday! As if heading into the weekend wasn't already wonderful enough, here comes a casting move that oughta keep you tickled for days: According to The Hollywood Reporter, James Franco is in talks to star in Brian Koppelman and David Levien's The Game, adapted from Neil Strauss's dating how-to bestseller, in the role of famed, instantly unforgettable pick-up master Mystery. Hollywood can pretty much drop the mic as Friday closes out, because no other casting move this week can possibly top this.

If you weren't familiar with Mystery (born Erik von Markovik), the expert pick-up artiste whom Strauss learned from to write The Game, well, where do I begin? Co-writer of such helpful tomes as The Mystery Method: How to Get Beautiful Women Into Bed and The Pickup Artist: The New and Improved Art of Seduction, Mystery even dallied in reality television in his 2007 VH1 reality series The Pick-Up Artist, in which he taught clueless schlubs how to cast out their lines and reel in the ladies.

Also? He looks like this:

What? It's called peacocking! How else can a man stand out from the crowd enough to catch a woman's eye?

Anyway, MGM's The Game is produced by Chris and Paul Weitz. And I for one cannot wait to see Franco decked out a la Mystery, soul patch and all.

James Franco in Talks to Star as Pick-Up Artist in 'The Game' [THR]



Comments

  • Hopefully the very young and the very ethnic crowds will come out for this.

  • SD says:

    I loved the book and so I am approaching this project with a wary eye but this casting seems pretty spot on.

    The casting of Neil/Style will really be the make or break though.

  • Kevin Bacon says:

    Ugh, except that Franco has no talent or charisma and the person playing Mystery will need both. Just cos Mystery is a douche doesn't mean you can just cast any ol proto douche to play him.

    Now Mystery playing Mystery - that would be some casting. He'd probably do it too.

    • Cameron says:

      The reason 'Mystery' isn't a film star is becasue he has no charisma. He is a douchebag, and so are you for thinking anybody wants to see that creep on the big screen. Ugh, that book was trash! Hollywood must REALLY be desperate. Franco could probably do something interesting with it though. It could be hilarious. Gonna take one helluva screenwriter to make something out of that awful book.

      • Kevin Bacon says:

        I already said he was a douchebag. And so are you to defy Kevin Bacon.

        James Franco isn't an actor. I should know. His whole extended cultural 'experiment' to 'interrogate' celebrity would have been more tolerable if it were just for the laughs, but he seems to think he's actually saying something about the culture, which makes him jkhasdjakhsdkahs.

        Now Kevin Bacon, there's an actor.

  • Kevin Bacon says:

    PS. I am not really Kevin Bacon.

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