Shocker! James Franco to Star in Yet Another Porn Drama

Here's some shocking and altogether unprecedented casting: James Franco is starring in a drama about the porn industry. Oh, wait... he's absolutely done that already. But history aside, this new HBO series, The Deuce, sounds pretty good. And it doesn't hurt that his co-star is the goddess Maggie Gyllenhaal, who's playing a prostitute-turned-porn-entrepreneur fittingly named Candy.'

The series comes from the mind of David Simon, the writer and producer perhaps best known for creating HBO' hit The Wire. He's also worked with everyone's favorite Home Box Office on the series Treme and the Oscar Isaac-led miniseries Show Me A Hero. Simon co-wrote The Deuce with the help of George Pelecanos, a detective fiction novelist who also contributed to both The Wire and Treme. Breaking Bad's Michelle MacLaren executive produced and directed the pilot.

The Deuce is set in New York City from the early '70s through the mid '80s, and tracks the rise of the porn industry after its legalization, the HIV/AIDS epidemic and the widespread use of cocaine in New York at its most gritty--years before the city was cleaned up and rose rents to astronomical heights.

Franco plays two twin brothers, Vincent and Frankie Martino, who became prominent figures in the Times Square sex industry and served as fronts for mob control of prostitution and pornography.

We do certainly find it interesting and disappointing that the central figure of a series set in AIDS-era New York is a straight white cis man. But putting out criticisms aside, here's the trailer and first look at HBO's upcoming The Deuce, set to premiere on September 10: