Bill Murray Replaces Toby Kebbell in PASSION PLAY

Production Weekly reports via its twitter feed that Bill Murray has joined the cast of Mitch Glazer’s directorial debut Passion Play, taking over for British actor Toby Kebbell in the role of gangster Happy Shannon. Passion Play, which is currently filming, is an independent drama starring Mickey Rourke, Megan Fox, and Rhys Ifans. It’s set in 1950′s LA and revolves around a washed-up trumpet player (Rourke) who saves a carnival-attraction angel (Fox) from Murray’s menacing mobster.

Writer/director Glazer wrote the scripts for Scrooged, The Recruit, and the 1998 adaptation of Great Expectations. And you may remember actor Toby Kebbell from his engaging break-out performance as drugged-out rock star Johnny Quid in Guy Ritchie’s RocknRolla. The reasons for his departure from this project are unknown, but you’ll see him again before too long in The Sorcerer’s Apprentice and Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.

Passion Play strikes me as quite the off-beat affair, which makes it no surprise that Murray has climbed aboard. That’s pretty much his thing these days and he’s damn good at it. He alone is probably reason enough to check this out. Also, Megan Fox as a freak-show angel? Don’t tell me you’re not the least bit curious about that.