Film based on Steve Erickson's novel will also feature Seth Rogen and Danny McBride

James Franco's latest directorial effort will star Megan Fox, Will Ferrell and regular collaborators Seth Rogen and Danny McBride. Zeroville is based on the 2007 novel by Steve Erickson and has recently began filming.

"Franco plays a young film-obsessed architecture student with images of Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift (as they appear in A Place in the Sun) tattooed on his shaved head who arrives on Hollywood Boulevard in 1969 where he's mistaken for a perpetrator in the Charles Manson murders," reports Screen Daily

Entering a world of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll set against the backdrop of the rise of the renegade film directors of the 70s he encounters starlets, burglars, political guerrillas, punk musicians and veteran filmmakers

According to the report Fox will play femme-fatale character Soledad and Rogen will play 'Viking Man', an 'eccentric, cigar-chomping, surf-hippy' who acts as a guide to Franco's character.

Jacki Weaver (Animal Kingdom) will play a film editor who also acts as a mentor and friend to Franco's character while Eastbound and Down's Danny McBride will play a sinister financier.

James Franco recently made a Batman beats Beetlejuice mash-up and was awarded the 'Jaeger-LeCoultre Glory to the Filmmaker' prize at this year's Venice Film Festival.