7 Actors Who Tried To Be Directors (And Totally Failed)

2. James Franco

James Franco has proven himself time and time again to be an excellent actor, even earning an Academy Award nomination for his work on 127 Hours. In recent years, he's attempted to stretch himself as an artist, not just by pursuing extensive academic work, but also turning his hand at directing, having over a dozen movies either completed or in post-production to date, all in the span of less than a decade. It's unsurprising, then, that Franco's movies tend to be rough-hewn, specialist art-house-flicks-cum-vanity-projects, and his films that critics have even bothered to review rank as such: The Broken Tower (20%), Sal (43%), Interior. Leather Bar. (55%), As I Lay Dying (42%), and Child of God (46%). The guy even has a movie in his filmography called "Francophrenia". Though Franco's adaptations of works from William Faulkner and Cormac McCarthy are a step in the right direction, he has yet to prove himself to be anything more than an aspiring director who just happens to have the money to blow on indulging his artistic whims, whether they're actually any good or not. With four more of his directorial effects awaiting release this year, he's showing no sign of slowing down, in spite of audience apathy.