Annual Top Films Lists

Top 200 Most Anticipated Films for 2014: #144. Barry Levinson’s Rock the Kasbah

Published on February 10, 2014

Rock the Kasbah

Director: Barry Levinson
Writer: Mitch Glazer
Producers: Steve Bing, Bill Block, Jacob Pechenik
U.S. Distributor: Open Road Films
Cast: Zooey Deschanel, Shia LaBeouf, Bruce Willis, Kate Hudson, Bill Murray, Danny McBride

In the 80’s, Barry Levinson appropriated restaurant lingo and male-bounding (Diner) , added some funk to the political process (Wag the Dog) and in the naughts has worked in docu, television, and The Bay, his low-budget genre film. An interesting mix of players and a quasi-return to American foreign policy has got us curious.

Gist: This tells the story of Richie Vance, a has-been rock manager (Murray) who takes his last remaining client (Willis) on a USO tour of Afghanistan. When Richie finds himself in Kabul, abandoned, penniless and without his passport, he discovers a young girl with an extraordinary voice and manages her through Afghanistan’s version of “American Idol”, the wildly popular “Afghan Star.”

Release Date: Freshly picked up by Open Road Films, production is supposed to begin in June of this year – so this is looking at a 2015 release window if Open Road doesn’t try for December.

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Eric Lavallée

Eric Lavallée is the founder, CEO, editor-in-chief, film journalist and critic at IONCINEMA.com (founded in 2000). Eric is a regular at Sundance, Cannes and TIFF. He has a BFA in Film Studies at the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema. In 2013 he served as a Narrative Competition Jury Member at the SXSW Film Festival. He was an associate producer on Mark Jackson's This Teacher (2018 LA Film Festival, 2018 BFI London). In 2022 he served as a New Flesh Comp for Best First Feature at the 2022 Fantasia Intl. Film Festival. Current top films for 2022 include Tár (Todd Field), All That Breathes (Shaunak Sen), Aftersun (Charlotte Wells).