Looks like the “Pineapple Express” crew had a pretty good time working together and enjoyed the nice surprise of James Franco’s comedic talents.
The “Spider-Man,” ‘Pineapple’ star has joined the cast of David Gordon Green and Danny McBride’s medieval stoner comedy, “Your Highness” according to Harry Knowles over at AICN.
Knowles attended an “Observe & Report” afterparty where Green and McBride were naturally in the house (director Jody Hill is a close friend of that North Carolina based crew) where he spoke with McBride at length about the project. Drunk on enthusiasm and intoxicated with jack and cokes he evidently forgot that Green let the cat out of the bag on this project last year in May, and that it was green lit two weeks later by Universal, but hey, it happens.
However, one feather in his cap he did procure from McBride was the fact James Franco had joined the cast as his co-star, so it wasn’t a total waste. ’80s adventure, sci-fi fantasy films like “Krull” have been a constant references point and indeed McBride told us at SXSW a few hours before he talked to Knowles at said party that the film would be like ‘Barry Lyndon’ meets ‘Krull,’ which made us laugh quite hard. But other film references Danny McBride used to describe the film where “Deathstalker 2” and “The Sword & The Sorcerer.”
Last May, Green described the project in great detail.
“It’s a medieval movie, so we want a bunch of Ray Harryhausen ‘Clash of the Titans’ effects. We’ve been watching ‘Beastmaster’ and ‘Yor, the Hunter From the Future.’ We want to make a movie on a big scale, but utilizing pre-CGI effects like matte painting, animatronics, and puppets. It’s about a prince who smokes weed and fights dragons.”
McBride told us the project was green lit, but then again, it was green lit last May, right? What does that mean anymore? However it does sound like it’s happening and shooting soon it sounds like. “It’s set to shoot in Ireland at that ‘Titanic’ building in Belfast on enormous stages,” Knowles wrote. “Spectral Motion (“Hellboy 2,” “Pan’s Labryinth”) will be providing the creature effects.
Sounds like a lot of dumb fun and these guys do great smart comedy, so we can’t wait to see this.