"Suck my cock! I’ll murder your family!"
God bless New Line for the red-band trailer tear they’ve been on of late. Even though most of the movies they’ve been advertising don’t look all that hot (e.g. Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay), at least they’re treating us like adults and giving us the R-rated goods. Generally, I’d like to think that this approach results in a quick box office windfall, but the red-band Shoot ‘Em Up preview didn’t exactly power that very good (if hated-by-Nick) movie to a massive opening weekend, did it?
That said, New Line’s got at least a one-weekend hit with Semi-Pro, which stars Will Ferrell as a hard-partying ABA forward. For those of you who aren’t up on the greatest era for professional basketball, "ABA" is short for American Basketball Association, the league that gave us Dr. J, Rick Barry, Moses Malone, George "Iceman" Gervin, Connie Hawkins and lots of other colorful characters.
I’ve long wanted to write a film about the ABA based on Terry Pluto’s excellent Loose Balls, but it looks like Semi-Pro will kill this material for a good decade or so. Written by Old School‘s Scot Anderson, the film is clearly emphasizing broad, Ferrell-esque improv over the flamboyant, coked-out truth that’s wacky enough to make for a fascinating movie (without cameos from Will Arnett and Andy Richter). While I knew Semi-Pro was destined to be a cartoon of sorts, I’m just disappointed that the red-band trailer makes it out to be a sub-par Slap Shot. This is epic squandering on everyone’s behalf.
But I’m dying to see it anyway. New Line opens the film wide on February 29th, and I’ll be there (provided the studio bars me from the junket for bad mouthing their trailer).
And I almost forgot to mention that this trailer is a rip-off of New Line’s Dumb & Dumber teaser.