Image Finds Something to Be Passionate About with ‘Passion Play’

Proof that the market place is big enough to include even the most critically panned titles at TIFF this year, Image Ent. will put Mickey Rourke and Megan Fox’s value to the test with a pick-up and eventual release of Mitch Glazer’s Passion Play. Bill Murray is safe in our books. The seven figure deal should pan out to be a short theatrical release before being offered as home entertainment sometime next year.

Written by Mitch Glazer, set in a world of music, mobsters and magic — this is a modern fable of romance, heartbreak and danger. Nate (Mickey Rourke), a down-on-his-luck jazz trumpet player, falls for Lily (Megan Fox), a winged woman who has wound up as a carnival sideshow attraction. Together these two damaged souls undertake a turbulent romantic journey while trying to avoid the sleek and menacing gangster, Happy Shannon (Bill Murray). Their love puts Nate’s life at risk but also offers him one last shot at redemption. Nate Poole (Rourke), a once-famous trumpet player in the Chet Baker mold, has fallen to playing gigs in a local strip joint where his best friend, bartender-dancer Harriet (Lynch), also works. Nate has been taunting trouble by sleeping with the wife of mob boss Happy Shannon (Murray)… and Happy knows it. Happy’s thug Aldo (Chuck Liddell) grabs hold of Nate, beats him, tosses him into a black Caddy and drives him deep into the Mexican desert to kill him. Just at the moment that Aldo’s gun presses on the back of Nate’s head, Nate squints up at a red-tail hawk, wings spread, silhouetted against the sinking sun. Time stops. Three gun shots.