Actor James Franco has teamed with gay art-porn director Travis Mathews to direct “James Franco’s Cruising,” inspired by William Friedkin’s controversial 1980 gay murder mystery “Cruising.”

The film, which Mathews just delivered to Franco as an initial cut, was shot over two days. Elapsed time from first conversation to first edit: two months.

“He straddles this superstar summer movie blockbuster celebrity life, and on the other hand he does these very low-budget art films,” Mathews told Indiewire. “There’s the people who know him for his blockbusters, but there’s a different population that knows his gallery shows and that he makes semi-esoteric gay content.”

“Cruising,” based on the novel by Gerald Walker, stars Al Pacino as a police detective who goes undercover in the gay S&M sex scene to investigate the serial murders of gay men within the subculture. The production, which shot in New York City, was picketed by gay rights groups nervous about the film’s depiction of gay men. (Those protests are documented in Jim Hubbard’s short “Stop the Movie (Cruising)”.)

According to Mathews, Franco wanted to update the film, but he couldn’t get the rights. As Mathews’ gay art porn/drama “I Want Your Love” was getting press attention, Franco’s people emailed Mathews to ask him to talk about the film. Within 24 hours, they were talking.

“He knew he wanted real gay sex in it,” Travis said. “His people went looking for a filmmaker who had filmed real gay sex, and I suspect someone who would complement his vision. We talked about why we would be interested in still looking at this film. We talked about his interest in the film and his interest more broadly in so many gay-themed stories and visionairies. He’s worked with so many in front of and behind the cameras over the years.”

As for Mathews’ own opinion and recollection of the film, “The interesting thing about that movie is it gets short-circuited a bit too quickly in people’s eyes. If you forget about the whole murder mystery backstory and you just look at the bar scenes, I think it’s quite an insightful, important document of an important subculture, right before AIDS hits, in 1979 New York.”

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Prince Harry put the crown jewels on display in Vegas this weekend … getting BARE ASS NAKED during a game of strip billiards with a room full of friends in his VIP suite. It all went down Friday night during a raging party in a high rollers hotel suite. We’re told Harry, along with a large entourage, went down to the hotel bar and met a bunch of hot chicks … and invited them up to his VIP suite.

Once in the room, things got WILD … with the group playing a game of strip pool that quickly escalated into full-on royal nudity. Some of the partiers snapped photos of the madness. In one photo, a fully nude Harry cups his genitals while a seemingly topless woman stands behind him. In another photo, a naked Harry is bear-hugging a woman who appears to be completely naked as well. No word on who the women are … or if they got Harry’s phone number.

A rep for the Royal Family tells us, “We have no comment to make on the photos at this time.”

TMZ