Keanu Reeves Is a ‘Budget Guardian Angel’ in Aziz Ansari-Directed Comedy Trailer

Keanu Reeves is angel on a mission to make the world a better place. But first, he’ll need to find a lost soul.

The trailer for Good Fortune, Aziz Ansari‘s feature directorial debut, dropped on Wednesday, opening with Reeves as Gabriel, a hopeful angel looking to be promoted from the unfulfilling roll of saving people from texting-and-driving accidents. His fellow angel Martha, played by the always phenomenal Sandra Oh, recommends he find someone worth saving, which leads to Gabriel standing on a Denny’s sign before spotting Ansari’s hapless character and declaring “I’m here to save you.”

Upon learning of his guardian angel’s past credentials, Ansari exclaims, “Wait. You’re telling me I have a budget guardian angel?!”

While the trailer doesn’t give much away in terms of plot (a rarity these days), Gizmodo previously reported that a Lionsgate presentation at CinemaCon 2024 offered a closer look at the project written, produced, and directed by Ansari. As part of Gabriel’s solution to showing Ansari’s character that the grass isn’t always greener on the other side of the Hollywood, the well-meaning angel body-swaps him with an uber-rich jerk, played by Seth Rogen. When Ansari refuses to switch back, chaos naturally ensues.

The film also stars Keke Palmer, and is produced by Ansari, Anthony Katagas and Alan Yang, with Ansari  Christopher Woodrow, Connor DiGregorio, and Jonathan McCoy executive producing.

When speaking to Entertainment Weekly, Ansari said he hopes the film will bring back the type of R-rated comedies Rogen became known for in the aughts and 2010s.

“I feel like people are like, ‘Oh, no one goes to comedies and theaters anymore.’ It’s like, well, they haven’t really been making a lot of them, you know what I mean?” he told the outlet. “So I hope this movie shows that people do want to see comedies at theaters and that it just leads to people making s—ty ripoffs of Good Fortune.

Good Fortune is slated to hit theaters on Oct. 17.

From Rolling Stone US.