Loyalty’s gotta count for something. Mitch Glazer is a veteran screenwriter (“Scrooged”), producer, the creator/showrunner of Starz’s “Magic City” and a longtime friend of Bill Murray. While he’s worked in Hollywood for some thirty years, it wasn’t until 2010 and “Passion Play” with Mickey Rourke, Megan Fox and Murray that Glazer directed a film. Premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival that year, “Passion Plays” was universally regarded as a disaster.
READ MORE: Review: ‘Passion Play’ Is An Excruciating, Unbearable Disaster
But try try again, right? Glazer’s back at it and his buddy Murray is in tow, this time as the lead. But there’s another director at the helm for the film: Barry Levinson. This dramedy is a rock and roll narrative set in the Middle East, focusing on a man who’s seen better days. Here’s the official synopsis:
“Rock The Kasbah” is the story of Richie Lanz (Bill Murray), a rock manager with a golden ear and a taste for talent, who has seen better times. When he takes his last remaining client on a USO tour of Afghanistan, she gets cold feet and leaves him penniless and without his passport in Kabul. While trying to find his way home, Richie befriends a band of misfits and discovers a young girl with an extraordinary voice. Against all odds, Richie will take his last shot at creating an unlikely superstar.
Co-starring Kate Hudson, Zooey Deschanel, Danny McBride, Scott Caan and Bruce Willis, the poster arrived yesterday and today we have the first trailer. Due in theaters October 23 via the Weinstein Company, it looks and feels like another humanist, "triumph over adversity" picture of the sort that’s been floating Murray’s boat of late ("Aloha," and "St. Vincent"). Watch the trailer below.
