Spider-Man's James Franco as Harry Osborn
Discuss James Franco

Although we might know him only as Harry Osborn, James Franco  (born April 19, 1978) has been putting out a lot of good movies. None have broke records at the box office, but from my perspective they've all pretty much been solid enjoyable movies. I haven't seen Tristan & Isolde so I can't comment on that one, but his military movies like Annapolis was very good. The Great Raid a World War II movie even better.

He's done a few war movies and has one more on the way called 'In the Valley of Elah" in it he plays Sergeant Dan Carnelli. According to Imdb.com the story from the movie goes something like this:

A career officer investigates the disappearance of his son , an exemplary soldier who went AWOL after his recent return from Iraq.

After just viewing his latest film to go to DVD Flyboys, I can highly recommend it for it's amazing aerial World War I battle scenes and solid acting. The last scene in particular gives James Franco a action shot that would have made John Wayne or Clint Eastwood jealous. You just ain't a red blooded man if you don't jump up and say," Yeah blow that dern Nazi out of the sky" when you see it.

*****Spoiler Just so you'll know what I'm talking about.

In the scene in question from Flyboys, Franco's machine gun fails him, and all he has left is his pistol. Pulling a Top Gun aerial maneuver that would have made Tom Cruise dizzy, Franco gets right beside the German enemy ace pilot, and bam! No more enemy ace pilot!

James Dean Have you ever saw James Franco on a movie and said to yourself that guy reminds me of the actor James Dean. Well that's because right before he played Harry Osborn he made a pretty darn good TV movie called James Dean where he actually played James Dean.

 It's almost scary when you see him. He could almost be his clone. (Oops, sorry about that forgot how much Spider-Man fans hate anything to do with clones ever since the Peter Parker Clone Saga.) His performance as James Dean was so good he even got a Golden Globe Award.

Of course being a Spider-Man site we are here to discuss Franco's contribution to the Spider-Man movie series. So without further ado.

Harry Osborn
It's been without question a big help to James Franco's career being part of such a huge movie franchise as the Spider-Man series. His role as Harry Osborn has made his face familiar to almost everybody.

Harry Osborn early on in the Spider-Man films is one of Peter Parker's few friends. The rich son of the evil Norman Osborn the Green Goblin, Harry tries his best to please his father, but Norman seems to notice Peter Parker more than Harry.

Unfortunately, for Harry Osborn, his father is a tad on the evil genius side and becomes the Green Goblin and tries to kill his friends namely Mary Jane and Peter Parker.

When the Green Goblin winds up dead after battling Spider-Man, Harry ends up convinced that Spider-Man killed his father in cold blood thus sending Harry towards the same dark path his father had went down.

With Spider-Man 3, Harry will take up the Goblin mantle and give Spider-Man a run for his money. Of course that's on top of Venom and Sandman he has to deal with.

The comic book version runs pretty much the same with Norman Osborn the Green Goblin's death being impaled with his glider then Harry taking over the family business and becoming the new Green Goblin. However in the next movie it has been said that although Harry will be on a Goblin glider and using Norman's tools of the trade, he will not be referred to as the Green Goblin or even the Hob Goblin.

The comic book Harry Osborn, dies from using The Goblin Formula which he used to gain the Goblin super strength. Taken for too long of a time period it began to poison his system. Thus Spider-Man 3 could very well be the last one for James Franco as his character could be killed off.

There is also an Ultimate version of Harry Osborn in the Spider-Man Ultimate series. Harry is also featured in the 1990's Fox Spider-Man cartoon series.

Amazing Spider-Man #136 Spider-Man vs the Harry Osborn Goblin