Admitting that this is so far up the rumor spout it might never come out,
CHUD claims a mysterious source has revealed to them that Sam Raimi desperately wants James Franco to play Jack Ryan in his relaunch of their spy thriller franchise. Paramount have already ploughed through three Ryans in bringing Tom Clancy's novels to the big screen (Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford and Ben Affleck), but the studio's not as keen on Franco as Raimi is (he worked with the
Pineapple Express star on his
spider-man trilogy). In fact, so resistant is the studio to Franco's charms - they're worried he's not a franchise-carrier - that Raimi's threatening to walk. Like we said, stick this one in the rumour file for now!