Also announced for the Old Vic's 2013 season is Lindsay Posner directing Terence Rattigan's play The Winslow Boy and Kim Cattrall starring in Tennessee Williams's SweetBird of Youth, directed by Marianne Elliott.
Franco, whose film credits include Milk and Pineapple Express, was expected to make his Broadway debut two years ago, in 2011, alongside Nicole Kidman in Tennessee Williams' SweetBird of Youth, but the production was abandoned.
Recurring motifs such as chirping cicadas and a blind bird's fragility are juxtaposed against violent sex and psyches so badly scarred they often beg for the sweet relief of death.