A few weeks ago, news dropped that Universal was bypassing a theatrical release entirely for Judd Apatow’s The King of Staten Island, which would have opened up SXSW this year before our entire way of life got upended by the coronavirus. Well, there’s finally a trailer for the Pete Davidson-led film, which the studio dropped on this lovely Friday. We imagine this trailer’s been sitting in storage for a bit, but you know what? It looks pretty funny, even if we kind of wish Apatow would be a little less like James L. Brooks as he ages (hell, we even liked Funny People alright, but him doubling down on that shit with This is 40 kind of pointed to the tonal hill that the dude was going to die on). Also, we just noticed that Davidson has a pretty sick Mars Attacks tattoo, so he’s alright in our book now.
Here’s the trailer:
And here’s a synopsis that is basically the Moby Dick of studio-provided ones:
“Scott (Davidson) has been a case of arrested development ever since his firefighter father died when he was seven. He’s now reached his mid-20s having achieved little, chasing a dream of becoming a tattoo artist that seems far out of reach. As his ambitious younger sister (Maude Apatow, HBO’s ‘Euphoria’) heads off to college, Scott is still living with his exhausted ER nurse mother (Oscar winner Marisa Tomei) and spends his days smoking weed, hanging with the guys — Oscar (Ricky Velez, ‘Master of None’), Igor (Moises Arias, ‘Five Feet Apart’) and Richie (Lou Wilson, TV’s ‘The Guest Book’)—and secretly hooking up with his childhood friend Kelsey (Bel Powley, Apple TV+’s ‘The Morning Show’).
But when his mother starts dating a loudmouth firefighter named Ray (Bill Burr, Netflix’s ‘F Is for Family’), it sets off a chain of events that will force Scott to grapple with his grief and take his first tentative steps toward moving forward in life.”
The King of Staten Island hits VOD and digital on June 12.