Good news, because it involves Bill Murray: as announced by QED media, the actor will pair up with director Barry Levinson on Rock the Kasbah, a story of “lunacy, heartbreak and hope” scripted by Mitch Glazer (Passion Play). Playing to the disaffected old man trope that’s defined his late-career filmography, it’s a project centered on a worn-down music manager who takes his final client to a USO tour in Afghanistan. Something goes wrong, as often happens in these stories, and his passport is lost — a bad situation made, if nothing else, interesting when “a young girl with an extraordinary voice” is found to have snuck with him to Kabul in hopes of appearing on the country’s American Idol equivalent, The Afghan Star.
No word on when Rock the Kasbah will roll cameras, but the ever-active Levinson and Murray will see their project presented around Toronto in the coming weeks.
Meanwhile, ScreenDaily report that Olga Kurylenko, hot off To the Wonder and Oblivion, is being contracted for the developing biopic Saint Laurent. Bertrand Bonello — most recently behind the masterful House of Pleasures — is to direct a top-notch cast consisting of Gaspard Ulliel as Yves Saint Laurent, Jérémie Renier, Léa Seydoux, Lisa Ulliel, and Robinson Stévenin, working from a script by Thomas Bidegain.
Little new about the project has been revealed since an initial February report, save for the notice that Films Distribution are taking Saint Laurent to Toronto, with a ten-week production expected to commence soon. Fingers crossed.
Finally, Jared Harris will reteam with his Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (how many of you remembered this film’s existence?) director, Guy Ritchie, on the latter’s upcoming The Man from U.N.C.L.E. The more-than-capable cast of Henry Cavill, Armie Hammer, Hugh Grant, Alicia Vikander (A Royal Affair, Anna Karenina), and Elizabeth Debicki (The Great Gatsby) just got better; the rest of this project remains a dubious item. Filming kicks off in six days’ time. [THR]
Does Kasbah sound like a fine use of Murray’s time? How does Saint Laurent shape up thus far?