At the premiere of Spring Breakers, James Franco talked to gay.net about how he's been dropped by three advertisers because of ad campaigns for films he debuted at Sundance. The films include Kink, a documentary-style film about BDSM porn actors that was produced by Franco, and Interior. Leather Bar, which he co-directed and is the fictional recreation of footage taken from the '80s gay thriller Cruising.
"I’ve lost three kinds of advertising campaigns now because the companies say they don’t like my image, but I know that it’s directly related to the films that I put out at Sundance," Franco said. "So you could say that there’s still this kind of homophobia or prejudice against certain kinds of material in mainstream cinema.”
Franco's foray into queer cinema may have cost him some advertisers, but he hasn't lost his box-office draw -- his latest film, Oz the Great and Powerful, brought in $150 million its opening weekend.