Festival Predictions

2014 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: James Franco’s Bukowski

Published on November 18, 2013

Right after he wrapped up his ’13 Sundance experience, Franco, the movie industry’s poetry geek, hit the brinks and commenced lensing in Los Angeles with Josh Peck, Shannen Doherty, Alex Kingston, Keegan Allen and Tim Blake Nelson. Set in the 20’s-30’s, simply titled Bukowski and not Ham on Rye, Franco’s fascination for the subject joins about a half dozen previous other films on the writer most recently Factotum. Production wrapped in March and as he recently professed to Charlie Rose, hopes that it’ll make the Sundance cut and we hope to see just how much of a range Peck has.

Gist: Written by Dave and James Franco, this is the story of writer Charles Bukowski’s formative years from childhood to high school and his struggles with an abusive father, disfiguring acne, alcohol abuse, and his initial attempts at writing.

Production Co./Producers: Jay Davis, Vince Jolivette, Miles Levy, Iris Torres

Prediction: A strong contender for the Premieres showing followed by a Berlin international premiere.

U.S. Distributor: Rights Available
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Eric Lavallée

Eric Lavallée is the founder, CEO, editor-in-chief, film journalist and critic at IONCINEMA.com (founded in 2000). Eric is a regular at Sundance, Cannes and TIFF. He has a BFA in Film Studies at the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema. In 2013 he served as a Narrative Competition Jury Member at the SXSW Film Festival. He was an associate producer on Mark Jackson's This Teacher (2018 LA Film Festival, 2018 BFI London). In 2022 he served as a New Flesh Comp for Best First Feature at the 2022 Fantasia Intl. Film Festival. Current top films for 2022 include Tár (Todd Field), All That Breathes (Shaunak Sen), Aftersun (Charlotte Wells).