Fall Smorgasboard: ‘Freelance’ Delivers Dishy Brie and Cena to Theaters, and Paramount Serves Up ‘Good Burger 2’ on Streaming
Two very different trailers dropped on Monday, and though the two new offerings aren’t tied to each other thematically (or in any other way) this website will nonetheless force the teasers for both projects into one article by the use of a food-based metaphor in the headline.
First on the menu is Freelance, an appetizing action comedy from Relativity Media. John Cena (Peacekeeper) plays a Special Forces operative who abandons his dead-end desk job to go back in the field, this time to escort a journalist, played by Alison Brie (GLOW, Community), safely out of a foreign country when a coup erupts in the midst of her interview with their (for now) dictator (Juan Pablo Raba).
In the trailer, after the three survive an explosion on a suspension bridge, Brie’s character declares, “I’m with the president of a country in the middle of a coup. This is the scoop of a lifetime.” Cena’s character bluntly responds, “You gotta be alive to have the scoop of a lifetime.”
Director Pierre Morel (Taken) directs from a script by Jacob Lentz, who has worked on Jimmy Kimmel Live!. Alice Eve, Marton Csokas and Christian Slater. Executive producers are Michael Arrieta, Danny Chan, Court Coursey, Marc Danon, Jaime Hernandez, Walter Josten, Lex Miron and David Robbins also star.
Freelance will be available for consumption exclusively in theaters beginning on October 6th.
The second course in Monday’s teaser trailer tasting menu is a second helping of Paramount’s Good Burger franchise. Kenan Thompson and Kel Mitchell are reviving their characters of Dexter (Thompson) and Ed (Mitchell) for Good Burger 2, based on the characters Thompson and Mitchell originated in the Nickelodeon sketch show All That and brought to the big screen in 1997’s Good Burger.
Good Burger 2 reunites Dexter and Ed and puts them behind the counter with a whole new group of employees for all new hijinks. The new crew includes Lil Rel Howery, Jillian Bell, Kamaia Fairburn, Alex R. Hibbert, Fabrizio Guido, Elizabeth Hinkler and Emily Hinkler as Cindy and Mindy, and Anabel Graetz as Ruth, as well as returning Good Burger staff Josh Server, Lori Beth Denberg, and Carmen Electra.
Nickelodeon Studios is producing the film which is directed by Phil Traill. Kevin Kopelow and Heath Seifert, who co-wrote the original film and worked on All That, serve as writers and executive producers on the sequel. James III is also a writer on the film.
Good Burger has yet to go stale: the characters originated in a sketch on the long-running Nickelodeon series All That, which originated in 1994. The 1997 film spinoff proved to be a box office success, grossing just under $24 million against a reported budget of $8 million. It has gone on to achieve cult status, with Mitchell and Thompson reuniting for a “Good Burger” sketch on The Tonight Show in 2015 and again on Saturday Night Live in 2022.
Good Burger 2 is set to premiere this fall on Paramount+, reportedly in November.