James Franco, God love him, has pretty much stopped caring if you like him. In fact he seems to take complete glee in subverting the idea of what a movie star should be; at Sundance, when he was premiering his experimental and very explicit film Interior Leather Bar, he seemed to be glowing from within with the knowledge that he was about to headline a huge Disney movie, Oz The Great And Powerful, in just a few months.
Franco can't come right out now and say he thinks Oz The Great And Powerful will be silly, but he has no fear saying that about other franchises-- and especially those that mimic one he already made. Asked by MTV at Sundance what he thought about The Amazing Spider-Man, Franco didn't exactly trash it, but he certainly didn't mince words about the film that he too thought was a little too similar to the original Spider-Man.
At the beginning of the clip Franco is being asked about Dane DeHaan, who has been cast as Harry Osborn in the next Spider-Man film, and was having his own good run at Sundance with a supporting role in Kill Your Darlings. DeHaan seems to have what it takes to be the next Franco-- a talented actor who could use the exposure in Spider-Man to move on to bigger things-- and maybe Franco knows it, which explains why he doesn't seem to care. But really, this isn't the start of a cat fight. This is an actor being honest for once, and saying what we were all thinking when The Amazing Spider-Man came out: why isn't this more original? It worked out, for the most part, but I can't necessarily blame Franco for thinking it didn't.
