‘Passion Play’ Does an Excellent Job of Hiding How Bad It Is in Trailer

Will Leitch
·Editor
Coming to a screen near you, very briefly. Image Entertainment
Coming to a screen near you, very briefly. Image Entertainment

Last month, we lamented the sorry plight of the direct-to-DVD project, using Mitch Glazer's "Passion Play" as an example. The film was truly Glazer's passion project; he spent 20 years trying to bring it to the screen and finally succeeded, with a killer cast of Mickey Rourke, Megan Fox, Rhys Ifans and Bill Murray. (Bill Murray!) You had to be happy for the guy, until the reviews from the Toronto Film Festival came out. They were not so good:

JoeBlo: "PASSION PLAY is a BAD movie. Astoundingly bad. Unfathomably bad."
The Hollywood Reporter: "If the degree of laughter at the wrong moments and the number of
walkouts at the Toronto International Film Festival are any indication,
the film will appeal only to the most fondly indulgent."
Rope Of Silicon: "I have no idea why this film was ever made."

So, the film was slated for a DVD-only release, which is amazing, considering it has Bill Murray in it. (Seriously, how did Glazer even get him on the phone?) But since we wrote that post, "Passion Play" received a reprieve from the governor, and now it'll hit screens on May 6. Even then, though, it'll just be around for three weeks, before that DVD release.

And now it has a trailer! It's not even that horrible. Take a look:

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You could almost be led to be believe it's a halfway decent movie. (Good idea to play up the Murray and play down the Fox, wethinks.) All evidence seems to point to the contrary, but we'll still go see it. Even if it looks like Megan Fox actually turns into an angel in the movie, and that sounds terrible. But at least it gets three weeks!

Could Passion Play Be the Megan Fox/Mickey Rourke Trainwreck You've Been Waiting for? [Movieline]
Denouement: The Tragedy of the Straight-to-DVD [The Projector]