James Franco to the rescue? When Werner Herzog’s Gertrude Bell biopic lost Jude Law, it ground the production – starring Naomi Watts and Robert Pattinson – to a halt, but now it appears Oz the Great and Powerful himself may ride in to save the day. Deadline reports filmmakers are now in talks with Franco to take over Law’s role in “Queen of the Desert”, but they caution scheduling is still being worked out and everything is contingent upon that right now.

Watts stars as writer Gertrude Bell in the flick that chronicles “Bell’s life as a writer, archaeologist, explorer, cartographer and political attache for the British Empire. One of the first women to graduate from Oxford at the turn of the 20th century, she traveled through the Middle East, defining the borders of Iraq, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.” Pattinson’s supporting role will be that of T.E. Lawrence, a British army officer whose brilliant writing of his experiences in WWI, particularly in his best known “Seven Pillars of Wonder”, earned him international acclaim as Lawrence of Arabia and became the subject of the iconic 1962 film starring Peter O’Toole. Lawrence and Bell were good friends and helped establish the Hashemite dynasties in Jordan and Iraq in the 1910s. Law’s role – now Franco’s – was never specified, but speculation pegged it as Charles Doughty-Wylie, with whom Bell had a two-year affair.

The free-spirited Franco was nominated for an Oscar for his role in Danny Boyle’s “127 Hours”, and most recently starred as the titular Wizard in Disney’s megahit “Oz the Great and Powerful.” He’s currently filming true life crime drama “True Story” with Jonah Hill and Felicity Jones and will soon be seen playing himself along with some of his celebrity friends in apocalyptic stoner comedy “This Is The End.” He does all this in between directing his own films, putting on art shows, taking college classes and writing a column for The Huffington Post. No wonder scheduling is an issue!