Actor James Franco has optioned Alex Marwood‘s THE KILLER NEXT DOOR.

According to Variety, Franco’s Rabbit Bandini Productions will be producing.  Actress Ahna O’Reilly will star and, along with Vince Jolivette  and Franco, serve as producer. O’Reilly previously worked with Franco on THE SOUND AND THE FURY, in which she starred and Franco produced.

No. 23 has a secret. In this gloomy, bedsit-riddled South London wreck, lorded over by a lecherous landlord, a horrifying collection quietly waits to be discovered. Yet all six residents have something to hide.

Collette is on the run from her ex-boss; Cher is a children’s home escapee; lonely Thomas tries to make friends with his neighbours, while a gorgeous Iranian asylum seeker and a ‘quiet man’ nobody sees try to keep themselves hidden. And there for them all is Vesta, a woman who knows everything that goes on in the house – or thought she did.

Then in the dead of night, a terrible accident pushes the six into an uneasy alliance. But one of them is a killer, expertly hiding their pastime, all the while closing in on their next victim…

THE KILLER NEXT DOOR is Marwood’s second book. The first, THE WICKED GIRLS, has been optioned, for television, by the BBC’s Hilary Martin.