James Franco is about to go streaming back into the past.
The Oscar-nominated and Golden Globe-winning “Interview” star has been cast as the lead in Hulu‘s original series “11/22/63,” adapted from Stephen King‘s 2011 bestseller of the same name.
Franco, who also will serve as a producer on the nine-hour miniseries, will play the lead role of Epping in the time-travel Kennedy assassination thriller from J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot Prods. and Warner Bros. TV.
In the story, Epping, a high-school English teacher, travels back in time to prevent President John F. Kennedy from being shot, but the mission is threatened by Lee Harvey Oswald, as Epping falls sway to the past, which resists change.
The project, which marks the first original programming collaboration between Hulu and WBTV, is described as “part thriller, part love story.”
At the time of the series’ announcement, King commented, “If I ever wrote a book that cries out for longform, event-TV programming, ‘11/22/63’ is it.”
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King serves as exec producer with Abrams and writer Bridget Carpenter.
Franco is repped by CAA; Sloane, Offer, Weber and Dern; and Untitled Entertainment.
