James Franco is turning his back on the gays! Well, no, he isn’t, but he may be playing a character who does. The NY Post reports that Franco is teaming with director Gus Van Sant to make a movie about the controversial Michael Glatze.

Glatze started out as a young gay man who was passionate about helping LGBT youth, including marching in gay rights rallies and urging young people to celebrate their non-traditional sexualities. He also launched the magazine Young Gay America after working at XY, becoming a leading voice in the gay rights fight.

However in 2004 he had a health scare involving a possible heart defect, which caused him to turn to conservative Christianity. Shortly afterwards he completely renounced everything he had previously stood for and said that he was now ‘ex-gay’.

In 2007 he wrote in a WorldNetDaily article that, “Homosexuality, delivered to young minds, is by its very nature pornographic.” Shortly afterwards he revealed that he was “repulsed to think about homosexuality” and that he was “going to do what I can to fight it.”

He has been rather changeable though (as if he’s still searching for something), briefly becoming a Mormon as well as occasionally seeming to slightly soften his stance by talking about bisexuality and fluid sexuality. He’s currently married to a woman and perhaps most surprisingly of all, despite this entire journey he’s still only 38.

The movie will be made on a budget of $3.5 million, with the hope of shooting in New York in July. It’ll be interesting to see which way Van Sant takes it, as while gay himself he is known for having a bit of a counterculture penchant, leaving some to wonder if he will use Glatze’s story to pick apart gay assimilation. More like though it will be more the tale of a man’s tragic fall. Either way, as Glatze hasn’t (yet) decided gays are ok after all, it’s unlikely to have a happy ending.