'Bad Trip': Hidden Camera Prank Film Skips Theaters, Goes Straight To Netflix
Bad Trip, a movie which stars Eric Andre, Lil Rel Howery, and Tiffany Haddish and features a mixture of traditional narrative and hidden camera pranks, was originally set to hit theaters last October. It got delayed to April 2020, and later it was moved up one week by the resurrected Orion Pictures. But the coronavirus pandemic put a stop to that, and now the film has found an entirely new home: it's bypassing theaters and going straight to Netflix.
This afternoon, Netflix's official Twitter account devoted to its film programming made the announcement about its acquisition of Bad Trip.
We promise this is not a prank.
BAD TRIP — a hidden-camera comedy about two best friends who pull pranks on a cross-country road trip, starring @ericandre, @lilrel4, and @TiffanyHaddish — is coming to Netflix!
— Netflix Tudum (@NetflixTudum) May 13, 2020
No further details were revealed, so the official release date is still unknown. Take a look at the film's red-band trailer, which was released in March, before the coronavirus pandemic threw a wrench into everything:
Bad Trip marks yet another movie to bypass a planned traditional theatrical release in favor of heading straight to streaming, and joins films like the Kumail Nanjiani and Issa Rae-starring The Lovebirds to jump over to the most dominant company in the streaming game right now. We've seen movies like Trolls World Tour and Scoob! make the jump to VOD, and Artemis Fowl is set to debut on Disney+. But those are kids movies, in an era when parents are desperate to give their kids any new family-friendly entertainment they can find. Will The Lovebirds and Bad Trip, which are aimed at non-kid audiences, stand out in the same way? Or will they just fall into the never-ending blur of Netflix content?Kitao Sakurai, who directed more than twenty episodes of Andre's surreal Adult Swim talk show The Eric Andre Show, is the director of this film, and the screenplay was written by Jeff Tremaine, one of the masterminds behind Jackass and the director of all of the Jackass films and its quasi-spinoff, Bad Grandpa. Tremaine and Andre are also producing the film alongside Dave Bernad (Superstore, The Mule) and Ruben Fleischer (Venom, Zombieland).
Here's the film's official synopsis:
From the producer of JACKASS and BAD GRANDPA, this hidden camera comedy follows two best friends go on a cross-country road trip full of hilarious, inventive pranks, pulling its real-life audience into the mayhem.