National Lampoon is re-entering the feature business with National Lampoon’s Hollywood Hustle, a self-referential comedy that leans hard into the industry’s love affair with its own dysfunction — and its cast’s own well-documented, headline-grabbing scandals.
The film boasts a deliberately chaotic ensemble led by Nick Cannon, Alec Baldwin and Mickey Rourke — who made recent headlines over a chaotic GoFundMe drive — with a supporting cast that includes Tara Reid, Danny Trejo, Til Schweiger, Carrot Top and Patrick Warburton.
Whether audiences view Hollywood Hustle as affectionate ribbing or as a darker snapshot of an industry that eats its own may hinge on how they read performances like Rourke’s. In a movie about bank accounts vanishing overnight and careers teetering on the brink, the actor’s very real eviction saga lends the satire an edge that even National Lampoon could not have scripted.
The project marks the feature directorial debut of Mike Hatton, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Paul Sloan, and stars as a harried independent producer. Cannon plays a Hollywood power agent scrambling to land Baldwin as the marquee name for a collapsing production.
When the film’s bank account is suddenly drained by a mysterious thief, Hatton’s producer character and Sloan’s washed-up movie-star sidekick are forced into a desperate race across Los Angeles to save their movie before time, creditors and assorted criminals catch up with them.
Set in a “meta” version of Hollywood, Baldwin, Rourke, Reid, Trejo and Carrot Top all portray exaggerated, fictionalized versions of themselves, blurring the line between satire and confession.
The production leaned into that inside-baseball tone, staging scenes in real L.A. locations with additional units shooting in Las Vegas and Majorca, Spain. The score comes from an unexpected source: System of a Down frontman Serj Tankian, whose Grammy-winning background adds a rock-opera edge to the madcap narrative.
For Rourke, the timing of the film is especially on the nose. The 73-year-old actor, once one of Hollywood’s most magnetic leading men, was recently evicted from his home of a decade.
After his manager launched a GoFundMe in his name, he recorded an emotional social media post denying any knowledge of the “humiliating” fundraiser and pledging to return every penny of the $100,000 raised by concerned fans. He is currently living in a West Hollywood hotel with his three dogs, while friends quietly tried to assist behind the scenes.
The eviction drama became a flashpoint in the ongoing conversation about how Hollywood discards its icons, especially those whose careers were derailed by addiction, health issues and the slow evaporation of studio offers. Once paid millions per picture, Rourke now often works in low-budget genre fare and international productions, making Hollywood Hustle’s premise of stars hustling to stay afloat feel less like parody and more like reportage.
In an exclusive clip from the film, Rourke pulls a gun on Hatton and Sloan’s filmmaker characters at a Las Vegas pool. That scene was inspired by an actual incident in which Rourke pulled a gun on Hatton during a casting negotiation. “The fact that I got him to reenact it in a movie is crazy to me,” Hatton tells THR.
The unnerving firearms sequence brings to mind yet another headline-grabbing scandal: the 2021 Rust shooting incident in which Baldwin’s prop gun discharged live ammunition, killing cinematographer Halyna Hutchins. Criminal charges against Baldwin were ultimately dismissed with prejudice in 2024.
That uncomfortable overlap between art and life is precisely what the filmmakers are betting on. “National Lampoon is responsible for molding an entire generation of comedic filmmakers,” Hatton says in a statement. “I’m honored to be part of that legacy, and working with its amazing team has been a dream come true.”
Producer Asko Akopyan, whose Oscar Gold Productions banner financed the film alongside Hatton’s Ton of Hats, framed the release as a return to Lampoon’s roots in cultural mischief.
“National Lampoon has been shepherding this project and is now stepping out from behind the curtain,” he said. “With the appetite for inside-Hollywood content and comedies returning to theaters and dominating the streamers, we are confident the time is now.”
Nick Cannon executive produces through Ncredible Entertainment, joined by Clyde Harris, Kimberly Hines, Jack Khudikyan and Ryan Penington. CAA Media Finance is handling North American sales.
