James Franco says he would be interested in doing ‘50 Shades of Grey’

Fifty Shades of Grey fans are still waiting impatiently for news on Universal’s planned film adaptation of the hit book. We still have no idea who is going to star as Christian Grey or who will direct. However, James Franco, who seems to find his way into nearly every project in Hollywood, says that he would not only be interested in doing it, but he knows who the studio is looking at to direct.

“It sounds interesting,” he told Marie Claire at the Sundance Film Festival. “I heard Gus [Van Sant] might direct it. If he directed it, I'd do it.”

Franco is certainly comfortable with sexually explicit material. After all, one of the projects he’s promoting at Sundance is Kink, a documentary on MDSM.

“This is for all the 50 Shades of Grey fans,” he told MTV News about Kink. “This is what you're reading about. This is the real thing. This is what it looks like. This isn't the dime store version of bondage. This is what bondage is like.”

Franco also discussed sex in the movies and what filmmakers have to do to include sex while still getting an R-rating from the MPAA. It’s been speculated that whoever directs 50 Shades will have an uphill climb trying to keep it from getting an NC-17 rating.

“It's hard to put certain kinds of sex in film,” the actor/director/writer told MTV. “Now, I could sort of understand that if it wasn't so easy to put other kinds of things in film, like violence. Obviously, there's some weird standard here that is just illogical.”

He adds that he doesn’t think sex should be that big a deal in movies. “It's a huge part of our lives...It's part of being human,” he said.

So far, all Universal has said is that Kelly Marcel is writing the 50 Shades screenplay.