Premiering two years ago at the Sundance Film Festival, Elijah Bynum’s Magazine Dreams was to be the start of a major year for Jonathan Majors, delivering a ferocious performance in the Taxi Driver-esque drama set in the world of bodybuilding. Picked up by Searchlight Pictures for a pretty penny, it was then shelved after assault charges against Majors. Eventually dropped by the distributor it was recently picked up by Briarcliff Entertainment who will give it a March 21 theatrical release. Ahead of the release, they’ve now debuted the first trailer.
Here’s the synopsis: “Killian Maddox is consumed by his dream of becoming a world famous bodybuilder and one day gracing the cover of fitness magazines. He lives a lonely, regimented life, and his relentless drive for perfection only pushes him deeper towards self-destruction, but beneath his tenacious pursuit of superstardom lies a desperate, aching need for human connection. As he battles both the limits of his physical body and his own inner demons, MAGAZINE DREAMS explores the lengths one man will go in his haunting quest for recognition in a world that often overlooks him.”
I said in my review from the premiere, “How do you make people like you? How do you make people remember you? These are the Google search queries of Killian Maddox (Jonathan Majors), a bodybuilder with delusional dreams of fame and an isolated life, tending to his Vietnam veteran grandpa as he dedicates every waking second to improving his physique and pushing his body to the extreme. A ruthlessly nihilistic beast of a movie, Elijah Bynum’s second feature Magazine Dreams provides a one-note powerhouse acting showcase for Majors, who ends up getting lost in the drawn-out second half as thematic points that initially sting get repeated ad nauseam and red herrings meant to shock become unnecessary side plots.”
See the trailer below for the film also starring Haley Bennett, Taylour Paige, Mike O’Hearn, Harrison Page, and Harriet Sansom Harris.