If you’re familiar with the oeuvre of Tim Robinson or Paul Rudd, you probably have an idea of what a collaboration between the pair would look like: silly but also deeply committed, off-putting but also hilariously apt. That more or less describes the Friendship trailer, which features the meeting of two middle-aged suburbanites. Premiering May 2025, the film stars Robinson as Craig, who “falls hard for his charismatic new neighbor, as Craig’s attempts to make an adult male friend threaten to ruin both of their lives,” per a synopsis from A24.
Craig is someone you could fairly describe as “basic” (“There’s a new Marvel out that’s supposed to be nuts. We should go see that!”). Austin (Rudd), meanwhile, is the local weatherman with a robust friend group that quickly seduces poor Craig, who is overwhelmed by being accepted “too fast.” Some of the more absurd bits from the Friendship trailer feel like they could’ve come straight from a Robinson project (the group of dads singing “My Boo” to each other, Robinson grinning maniacally in VR goggles, Robinson and Conner O’Malley yelling at each other). But that was not necessarily the intention of writer-director Andrew DeYoung. “I certainly wrote this movie to stand on its own and wasn’t trying to be an extension of Tim’s aesthetic or voice, but it’s nice that there’s a crossover there, it seems,” he told Entertainment Weekly in December.
DeYoung wrote the screenplay during the pandemic, explaining that “The seed of the idea came from feeling rejected by someone who I thought was going to be a new male friend, and I caught myself spinning out, and I thought that was really pathetic.” Unsurprisingly, what drives a wedge between Craig and Austin’s friendship is that “Craig does something strange when they are hanging out one night,” DeYoung shared. That leads to a breakup as bad as or worse than any romantic breakup you’ve ever seen, as the Friendship trailer teases break-ins, screaming, glass breaking, and police intervention. It all makes the case that—as the tagline goes—”Men shouldn’t have friends.”
