William Friedkin

William Friedkin’s career rose to pretty heady heights in the 1970s, with the highly revered French Connection, followed by The Exorcist – one of the most successful horror movies of the era (though Friedkin himself refuses to classify the movie as ‘horror’). However, his career plummeted quite dramatically, with the critical and financial failure of 1977’s ‘Sorcerer,’ which only recouped around half of its then-staggering $22 million production budget. In a new book from the director, he reveals in brutally honest account of his own successes and failures.

In the book, Friedkin also describes the struggles that he had with some of the best known actors with whom he worked throughout his career. Having clashed with the star of his controversial movie, Cruising – Al Pacino – he tells The Wrap that he never really got a chance to make amends with the actor. “I have not seen him a lot. We never moved in the same circles. I wanted Richard Gere for the role. Having seen the film at special screenings, I've come to realize he is still pretty damn effective in it, but he gave me a rough time for reasons other than the normal actor-director relationship. He wasn't on time and often didn't know what we were doing on a particular day.”

And it wasn’t just Pacino that gets a pasting from Friedkin. There’s not much love lost between him and Gene Hackman either: “I had a strained relationship with Gene. The important thing is he gave a damn good performance even though we had a rocky time of it.” Friedman also revealed in the interview that a new BluRay version of The Exorcist will be released this year, with an hour and a half of new extras. 

Continue reading: William Friedkin Book Reveals Struggles With Al Pacino, Gene Hackman

Thank god for James Franco, huh? Everyone's favourite actor-turned-student-turned-performance-artist had two films premiering at the Sundance Film Festival on Saturday evening (January 19, 2013), though one of them caused more of a stir than the other. Franco is co-director of Interior. Leather Bar, a movie purporting to be a re-creation of "40 minutes of hardcore gay sex that director William Friedkin cut out of his controversial 1980 movie Cruising," reports Hollywood.com.

The original film starred Al Pacino who goes undercover in the New York leather scene to resolve a number of grisly murders. Had Friedkin kept in the gay scenes, the movie would have almost certainly been rated X and not reached an extensive audience. With "oral sex, masturbation, and erect penises galore," it seems Interior, Leather Bar is going to be pretty hard to screen too.

Though not as controversial as 'Interior..', James Franco's other Sundance effort still contained plenty of pornography. The actor serves as co-producer of Christina Voros' Kink, a straightforward documentary about the porn website Kink.com. The film explores how the multi-million dollar company goes about managing the world's largest collection of BDSM (bondage, discipline, sadism and masochism.) 

Continue reading: Sundance 2013: James Franco Brings The Leather-Clad, X-Rated Gay Scenes