Bill Murray is a bad-ass. Everybody knows that. (How many other actors can boast this amount of face-plastered T-shirts?) And his newest role sounds like it could be one of his greatest: According to The Hollywood Reporter, the famously droll all-star is set to star as “burned-out music manager” in Rock the Kasbah, a new Barry Levinson-directed project.
The film (written by Mitch Glazer, who penned the 1988 Murray vehicle Scrooged) will feature Murray’s character on a USO tour in Afghanistan supporting his only remaining rock star client. According to the production company QED, “When he finds himself abandoned, penniless and without his passport, he discovers a young girl with an extraordinary voice, who stows away with him back to Kabul to compete on the popular television show The Afghan Star, Afghanistan’s equivalent of American Idol.”
Levinson (a veteran filmmaker who’s directed such classics as Rain Man and Good Morning, Vietnam) and Murray are described as “the perfect team to capture the lunacy, heartbreak and hope of this story.” The film will be introduced to potential buyers at the Toronto Film Festival, which starts on September 5th.
Sounds…phenomenal. More specifics on the film are scarce, but we’ll be sure to update you further on Kasbah details as they emerge.
