Nearly two years after Owen Wilson was spotted triumphantly hitting the stage at the Rolling Loud Miami festival, fans are getting their first proper look at Rolling Loud, the film.
The Zoolander franchise alum—joined in the cast by Matt Rife, Christine Ko, Sexyy Red, Ski Mask The Slump God, Ty Dolla Sign, Christian Convery, Travis Scott, and more—plays a father whose misguidedly hell-bent mission of becoming a cool dad inspires him to sneak his teen son into the festival.
Things take a turn, however, when his son gets lost in the crowd, marking a predicament that’s loosely based on a real-life experience involving the film’s director, Jeremy Garelick.
“This all started from the chaos of me bringing my son to Rolling Loud in LA, three years ago,” Garelick, also known for directing The Binge and founding the American High production company, recently told Complex’s Jordan Rose. “I took him to Rolling Loud LA and then lost him, and he was only 13. [I] freaked out, looked all over for him, finally hound him about, like, half an hour later. Then I gave him a big hug and I was like, ‘That’s a good movie. That’ll be a fun movie to write.’”
Asked about the process of turning this presumably traumatic experience into a high-stakes comedy, Garelick connected it to the larger history of comedy as an art form, noting that tragedy often serves as the impetus for even the most ludicrous moments of hilarity.
“Remember There’s Something About Mary, where he zips up his pants and he catches his testicle skin,” Garelick told Complex. “In real life, that’s not funny, but in a movie with Ben Stiller doing it, that’s comedy. So, it’s always about taking something that’s sort of a moment that, in your life, it’s sad or has a lot of stakes or [is] tragic, and using the timing to make it funny and putting funny people in those situations. I’m always looking for the positivity out of everything.”
Rolling Loud is in theaters Oct. 2 via American High, Live Nation Studios, and Ketchup Entertainment. See the just-released teaser trailer, which originally premiered for festival attendees earlier this month, below.
