The Long Shot red band trailer includes lots of positive quotes from critics praising Seth Rogen and Charlize Theron's romantic comedy. Long Shot only just had its premiere at the 2019 SXSW festival, where it earned generally strong reviews from the critics who saw it. The movie itself hits theaters at the start of May, just a week after Avengers: Endgame arrives on the scene. That is to say, the good early word of mouth should only aid Lionsgate's efforts to present the film as worthwhile counter-programming to the next major Marvel Cinematic Universe tentpole.
Rogen stars in Long Shot as Fred Flarsky, an unemployed journalist who (by chance) reunites with Charlotte Field (Theron), the woman who used to baby-sit him when he was just a kid. Charlotte has since become the U.S. Secretary of State and is giving serious thought to running for president when she hires Fred as her speechwriter, much to her advisors' confusion. Lionsgate dropped Long Shot's green-band trailer back in February and has now unveiled a red-band promo online, in an effort to capitalize on the comedy's momentum post-SXSW.
As mentioned, the Long Shot red band trailer features quotes from a number of the film's early positive reviews. You can check it out for yourselves in the space below (courtesy of Lionsgate).
Based on the red band trailer, Long Shot is less raunchy than most of the comedies that Rogen's had a hand in co-writing (see: Superbad, Pineapple Express, Sausage Party) and hews closer to the tone and style of director Jonathan Levine's previous movies. The filmmaker is far from a stranger to ribald humor himself and even directed Rogen in the holiday raunch-fest The Night Before, but his movies otherwise tend to fall more in comedy-drama territory. Long Shot is certainly much more light-hearted than Levine's cancer dramedy 50/50 (which Rogen also starred in), but it sounds like the film is all the better because it plays out like an adult rom-com, more than anything else.
Long Shot was written by Dan Sterling (King of the Hill) and Liz Hannah (The Post) and, as those credentials would suggest, further manages to weave some sociopolitical commentary into the mix, according to the early reviews. The film's red band trailer confirms as much to be true, especially when Alexander Skarsgård pops up as a handsome Canadian Prime Minster who's clearly meant to be a riff on real-life Canadian PM Justin Trudeau. There are already a few mixed to negative reviews which feel that Long Shot struggles to juggle its various genre elements, so it'll be interesting to see if more critics feel that way or if the movie only continues to build positive buzz over the next six weeks.
