Staging graphic scenes inspired by the
notorious 1980 Al Pacino film is just the latest effort from a star
preoccupied with same-sex themes.

Detailed in a new piece from Indiewire, sees the star of the upcoming Oz: The Great and Powerful working with Travis Mathews,
an erotic art-film director. Franco approached Mathews to oversee a
project that would attempt to re-create 40 minutes of lost footage from Cruising — a 1980 William Friedkin film starring Al Pacino as an NYPD officer who goes deep undercover into the gay leather scene to catch a serial killer. (Friedkin tweeted today
that Franco had called him “about this 2 days ago,” adding, “I have no
idea what he has in mind, but he has no remake rights,” which is true.
The “lost footage” angle is an attempt at exploiting a legal loophole.)

The notorious movie, which featured real S&M participants as
extras and explicit depictions of public gay sex, is considered
shockingly graphic even by today’s standards. The result of this latest
collaboration — James Franco’s Cruising — was filmed over a
period of two days. The first cut features “real gay sex in it,” Travis
says, just as Franco, who plays himself in the film, had instructed. 

James Franco’s Cruising may mark a significant leap ahead in
just how far its star is looking to push the envelope. Here then are
five efforts of a similar vein that led to its inception at Hollywood reporter.