My Own Private River is a re-contextualized adventure drama film of My Own Private Idaho (1991).[1] Using footage shot and directed by Gus Van Sant in 1990, the new edit gives James Franco and Van Sant a shared director credit.[2] The project is in tribute to Franco's favorite actor, River Phoenix. Franco called My Own Private Idaho one of his favorite movies and praised River's performance as the actor's best.[3]
In 2007, at a conference meeting in New York City for the 2008 film Milk, Franco and Van Sant responded to questions about Franco's favourite movie, which turned out to be My Own Private Idaho. Van Sant admired Franco's appreciation for the film, while Van Sant enticed Franco to give him a tour of the film's locations in Portland, Oregon. Franco expressed his wish to Van Sant to access the outtake footage for the original film.[4]
Van Sant showed Franco the collection of unseen film. Franco was interested to digitize and assemble the footage as a re-contextualized film. About the unseen footage, Franco stated, “I edited the film as I imagined Gus might have if he made My Own Private Idaho today,”
In an interview in February, 2012, Franco suggested that the film was unlikely to be released on DVD or Blu-ray, joking that "New Line doesn't want us to compete with the original either."[5]
