Actor James Franco has signed on to
play Michael Glatze in an upcoming film being produced by Gus Van
Sant.
Glatze is the controversial publisher
and former gay rights advocate who gained notoriety for publicly
renouncing being gay.
According to the NYPost's PageSix,
Franco and Van Sant are teaming up for a third time for the $3.5
million film.
Glatze and former boyfriend Benjie
Nycum in 2004 launched Young Gay America magazine (YGA
Mag), a bimonthly magazine for LGBT youth which folded three
years later. The pair, who met while working at XY
magazine, also co-authored the book XY Survival Guide.
“I don't think the gay movement
understands the extent to which the next generation just wants to be
normal kids,” Glatze told Time magazine in 2005. “The
people who are getting that are the Christian right.”
Glatze, whose father died from a heart
condition, turned to religion after a health scare involving heart
palpitations. He was eventually diagnosed as having Celiac disease.
In 2007, Glatze publicly announced he
no longer identified as gay and denounced homosexuality in two
WND.com articles. In one article, he pledged to fight gay rights.