James Franco plays the title role under the direction of Mark Rydell, who chronicles Dean's rise from a struggling actor to an A-list movie star in 1950s Hollywood.
The film's supporting roles included Michael Moriarty, Valentina Cervi, Enrico Colantoni, and Edward Herrmann.
James Dean was shown on TNT in the United States on August 5, 2001, receiving generally positive reviews from critics and widespread acclaim for Franco's performance.
At eight years old, James Dean lives with his estranged father Winton and mother Mildred in 1939 Santa Monica, California.
James moves back to Santa Monica in June 1949, shortly after high school graduation, and finds that Winton has remarried.
He receives critical acclaim in Broadway theatre productions and for a role in a television movie drama that is broadcast nationwide.
Film producer-director Elia Kazan hires James for the leading role in East of Eden (1955), marking his Hollywood debut.
He considers shutting down production of Rebel Without a Cause, but he drops the idea due to James's praised performance in Eden.
She ends up marrying Vic Damone, while James then signs a one million dollar contract with Warner Bros. and is cast in Giant (1956).
In the early 1990s, Warner Bros. planned to produce a feature biographical film about actor James Dean, and the studio hired Israel Horovitz to write the script.
[2] When Horovitz wrote the script, he explored the "psychological insight" of Dean by showcasing the abandonment of his father, which became the fulcrum of the storyline.
He respectfully undid the James Dean bio for me.”[10] Des McAnuff replaced Mann as director, and filming was rescheduled to December 1994.
[11] Screenwriter Horovitz was busy playwrighting in Europe, so McAnuff and producer Marvin Worth were constantly rewriting the script in July 1994.
[3][7] Gerber explained the format choice, "It was just hard to find bankable names that the studio would finance a $20 million movie with.
The call encompassed New York, Los Angeles, Toronto, Vancouver, Atlanta, Chicago and the Midwestern United States.
Casting director Nancy Foy commented that the search included "everyone from highly-trained, experienced actors in their early and mid-20s, to people who had no training and had sent in self-made tapes".
The actor also carefully studied Dean's mannerisms by watching his three films (East of Eden, Rebel Without a Cause and Giant).
[25] David Thomson, reviewing in The New York Times, felt Franco's performance as Dean gave Baby Boomer audiences a positive sense of nostalgia of the 1950s.
[26] James Poniewozik of Time magazine also highly praised Franco's performance, but felt the script was overtly cliché.
[27] Ken Tucker wrote in Entertainment Weekly that James Dean, alongside Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows (2001), was a revolutionary force in the television movie genre.
[37] It featured theatrical trailers for Rebel Without a Cause and Giant, English, French, Spanish subtitles, and Dolby Digital 5.1 Audio.