New ‘Child of God’ trailer: James Franco adapts Cormac McCarthy

Does James Franco ever sleep? In the past year, he’s starred in such diverse films as “Oz the Great and Powerful,� “Spring Breakers� and “This Is the End�; directed art house efforts like “Sal� and “Interior. Leather Bar.�; mentored Gia Coppola in adapting his book “Palo Alto Stories� into a film; been roasted on Comedy Central; mounted an unusual Oscar campaign; and even parodied a Kanye West video for good measure.

Now a new trailer has been released for his directorial effort “Child of God,� adapted from the novel by Cormac McCarthy. The film stars Scott Haze as a disaffected Tennessee outcast whose life devolves into violence and depravity.

From the looks of the trailer — which begins with the local sheriff (Tim Blake Nelson) asking Haze’s character, “What sort of meanness have you got laid out for next?� — the film is as bleak and violent as one might expect from a film based on a McCarthy book.

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The author’s novels have been adapted to the screen before in “All the Pretty Horses,� “The Road� and, most successfully, “No Country for Old Men,� which won four Oscars, including best picture. McCarthy’s first original script, “The Counselor,� made it to the big screen last year but was a critical and box office dud.

“Child of God� premiered at the Venice Film Festival in August, after which Variety film critic Justin Chang wrote, “Franco has emerged with an extremely faithful, suitably raw but still relatively hemmed-in adaptation that compares favorably with his earlier films, yet falls short of achieving a truly galvanizing portrait of social and sexual deviance.�

The film does not yet have a U.S. distributor. Watch the new trailer for “Child of God� below.

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