Bill Murray and writer Mitch Glazer partner for Barry Levinson
Bill Murray and screenwriter Mitch Glazer have known each other for decades -- since Murray played the lead in Glazer’s “Scrooged” in 1988. And now the two are partnering again on a project Barry Levinson will direct.
Glazer’s screenplay, called “Rock the Kasbah” and which QED International will finance and produce with Venture Forth and Shangri-La Entertainment, centers on a burned-out music manager who goes to Afghanistan on the USO tour with his last remaining client, according to Deadline.com, which published the news earlier Tuesday.
The manager winds up meeting a young girl with a great voice, whom he brings to Kabul to compete on “Afghan Star,” Afghanistan’s equivalent of “American Idol.”
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The movie sounds like a perfect Murray vehicle, quirky and odd, just like the comedian himself, who’s known to engage in random hijinks just to keep life interesting. He most recently showed up to celebrate the 20th anniversary of David Letterman’s “Late Show” dressed as Liberace.
After “Scrooged,” Murray starred opposite Glazer’s wife, Kelly Lynch, in 2000’s “Charlie’s Angels” and he played the villain in Glazer’s directorial debut, “Passion Play,” in 2010.
It’s a wonder Glazer would reach out to Murray again considering the actor has been continually harassing him over Lynch’s role in 1989’s “Road House.”
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As the story goes, according to Lynch, who shared it with the A.V. Club last year, every time the Patrick Swayze flick airs on television, Murray calls up Glazer to report that “Kelly is having sex with Patrick Swayze right now.” Murray, says Lynch, has no regard for time zone consideration and has been known to ring the couple at all hours of the night, from whatever locale he is in -- even calling from Russia once to relay the important information.
With the producers headed to Toronto to sell the film internationally, there is currently no start date for the movie. That will surely give Murray additional time to find new ways to harass his longtime friend.
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