James Franco To Star In Stephen King’s Drunken Fireworks

Stephen King’s short story Drunken Fireworks is headed to the big screen.

Rabbit Bandini Productions and Rubicon Entertainment are co-producing Drunken Fireworks and it will star James Franco as Alden McCausland, a local good ol’ boy who competes with retired mob boss Nicky Serrano in an unfriendly and ever-escalating Fourth of July fireworks competition.

According to Deadline, Franco “possibly could direct as well, but that hasn’t yet been decided. The script is being written by Matt Rager, a frequent Franco collaborator whose credits include As I Lay Dying, The Sound And The Fury and the upcoming John Steinbeck novel adaptation In Dubious Battle, all of which Franco directed.”

Franco recently starred in another Stephen King adaptation: Hulu”s eight-part event series, 11.22.63.

The book’s official synopsis (via stephenking.com):

Alden McCausland and his mother are what they call “accident rich”; thanks to an unexpected life insurance policy payout and a winning Big Maine Millions scratcher, Alden and his Ma are able to spend their summers down by Lake Abenaki, idly drinking their days away in a three-room cabin with an old dock and a lick of a beach.

Across the lake, they can see what “real rich” looks like: the Massimo family’s Twelve Pines Camp, the big white mansion with guest house and tennis court that Alden’s Ma says is paid for by “ill-gotten gains” courtesy of Massimo Construction. When Alden’s holiday-weekend sparklers and firecrackers set off what over the next few years comes to be known as the 4th of July Arms Race, he learns how far he and the Massimos will go to win an annual neighborly rivalry – one that lands Alden in the Castle County jail.