Watch: First teaser for HBO tennis mockumentary "7 Days in Hell"
HBO is providing a few good reasons to watch a painfully long tennis match: raunchy humor and Andy Samberg.
The former "SNL" star will face off with Kit Harington of "Game of Thrones" fame, playing tennis champs forced into a historic match that lasts for a whole week in 2001 in the upcoming HBO original movie, "7 Days in Hell: Eternal Flames."
The network released a trailer Friday giving glimpses into the screwball mockumentary about party boy tennis hero Aaron Williams (Samberg) and his dim-witted arch rival Charles Poole (Harington) as they battle in an interminable game loosely based on the famous three day Isher-Mahut match at Wimbledon 2010.
Director Jane Syzmanski of "SNL" and "Girls" writer Murray Miller teamed for the 50-minute comedy that cameos John McEnroe and Serena Williams, among others. Fred Armisen and Will Forte star as experts for the mock HBO-style sports production.
"The main conflict is hilariously performed by Samberg and Harington, but even with runtime in short supply, '7 Days in Hell' finds space for some wonderful digressions," wrote Matt Singer of Screen Crush after the film screened earlier this year at SXSW in Austin. "The random detours soon become exhilarating; it's impossible to predict where things will go from one moment to the next (except that they will probably involve some kind of genital humor)."
If "7 Days" opened in theaters, it would probably carry an NC-17 rating, Singer says. For better or for worse, HBO will serve the vulgar spectacle in living rooms on July 11.