As his latest movie, Observe and Report, opens today, Seth Rogen was asked this week about another recent comedy.
Would he consider a sequel to Pineapple Express?
"Of all the movies we’ve done, that’s the only one that I would actually like to do a sequel to and we talk about it,” Rogen told MTV.
Would you line up for a Pineapple Express sequel?
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USA Today has featured Seth Rogen, Kevin Smith and others associated with Zack and Miri Make a Porno in a long article. Guess a movie with that title draws a lot of mainstream attention.
For his part, Rogen commented on working with Smith, citing the influence the writer/director has had on his comedic career:
"In a lot of ways, our comedy comes from Kevin. I have often, and [Judd Apatow] has also, talked about how Clerks was one of the first movies showing guys talking how we talk. It seems very simple, but it was a revelation in many ways for guys who wanted to write comedy."
In Zack and Miri Make a Porno, lines must be practiced before clothes can come off.
They're making Ghostbusters 3? Really?!?
Such was the reaction of Seth Rogen upon hearing that a third installment of this franchise was in the works.
"It's hard to imagine that would be good, isn't it? I mean just as a movie fan I am the first guy to be skeptical of that. It sounds like a terrible idea when you first hear it. At first hearing it sounds like the worst idea ever. I dunno. Maybe. I mean, that would have to be one motherf****** good script."
Seth Rogen stars in Zack and Miri Make a Porno. Don't look for him in a new Ghostbusters movie.
Seth Rogen is a busy, funny man.
The actor is in the process of hyping his upcoming movie, Zack and Miri Make a Porno. As he does so, however, Rogen is talking about a number of other films on his horizon.
For example: The Green Hornet. Here are excerpts from an interview with the star and Collider:
Q: For years, Stephen Chow has dismissed attempts to make movies in America. What did you say to him to get him to come stateside and make ‘The Green Hornet’?
Rogen: We gave him the goods man. Um, I don’t know. We didn’t know that. We had no idea if he had been approached by anyone. We had just heard he was very hard to get in contact with. But, we sent him the script and heard he wanted to do it. It was as simple as that.
Q: One more question on Stephen Chow, did you guys have a different opinion on the direction of the project when you brought him in?
Rogen: Right now is we are just beginning the conversations. I mean, we haven’t started shooting yet. But, no, we wanted his input. We gave him the script in a very early phase hoping that he’d have a lot of ideas to add to it. When we do something, I don’t know if it’s the best idea ever and I wouldn’t necessarily recommend this to writers, but we send our scripts out to directors at a very early step in the process.
To the point where it just scares some directors off all together and they go, ‘Blugh!’ And some people get and say, ‘I get what they are going for and I have a lot o f ideas that can help build this’ And Stephen had a lot of ideas and that’s exactly what we wanted and I feel like – we want our directors to feel like it’s there movie too. We don’t want them to feel like they are just guys brought in to film what we wrote. We want them to feel like they can stand behind it also. So far we haven’t disagreed, we’re all just trying to figure out who he should be.
A few months after Katherine Heigl appeared in Knocked Up - and had her movie career sky-rocket, as a result - the ungrateful actress told Vanity Fair that she thought the movie was “a little sexist.”
Heigl went on to say that Knocked Up "paints the women as shrews, as humorless and uptight, and it paints the men as goofy, fun-loving guys. … It was hard for me to love the movie.”
Now, for the first time, someone involved with the hit comedy has spoken up about Heigl's unflattering remarks. While promoting Pineapple Express, Seth Rogen tried to temper his response to his former co-star's words. But it got harder and harder to do as the conversation went on.
"[I] thought it would have been nice if she'd said something while we were making the movie,'' Rogen said. "We don't hire actors as purely actors. We make them creative consultants basically and really get their opinions on every aspect. There's an extremely long rehearsal process solely dedicated to having those conversations so, yeah, I thought it was weird."
Katherine Heigl and Seth Rogen starred together in Knocked Up. Since then, the actress has gone on to diss the movie for no apparent reason.
Unable to refrain by getting a dig in at Heigl's main complaint - that Knocked Up somehw demeaned women - Rogen added:
"I mean, it won a Women's Image Network Award. Take that! She can take it up with them."
MTV got a chance to do a short interview with Seth Rogen about his upcoming Judd Apatow flick, Funny People, at Comic-Con. Again, for those of you out of the know, Funny People is Judd Apatow's take on the stand-up comedy world. Below is an excerpt from the interview:
MTV: [Which jokes have made the cut?]
Rogen: “I bailed on ‘The Hills’ bit. I started doing stand-up and I’ve done it a few times and I don’t have any Hills jokes. I feel upset about that. I realized you don’t have to be smart to write a joke making fun of ‘The Hills.’ ‘The Hills’ makes fun of itself.”
MTV: [What will you fill the holes with?]
Rogen: “A MUCH more mature path. Masturbation and testacles and things of that nature. I’m really branching. It’s very elevated comedy.”
MTV: [Will we see Judd Apatow doing stand-up comedy?]
Rogen “I don’t think so. It could be funny to see him doing stand-up, but we didn’t have any plans for that.”
You can read the full interview at MTV Movies Blog.
Pineapple Express co-stars Seth Rogen and James Franco recently sat down with MoviesOnline to discuss their upcoming comedy. Here are a few highlights of the interview:
MoviesOnline: What was the idea behind writing this? Also, James, this isn't something we'd normally expect to see you do. How did this come to you and why did you say yes?
Rogen: The original idea came from Judd [Apatow] actually. He just kind of had the loose notion of like, 'What about a weed action movie?'
Me and Evan thought that could be rad and basically we started thinking about making a movie that was kind of a weed movie and action movie and had a real kind of friendship story to it then that would be our favorite movie ever. We originally actually wrote Franco's part for me and the part I ultimately played just for someone else in general and then when we got Franco involved we thought it was a good idea to switch the roles. I think it worked really well.
Franco: I hadn't done a comedy for a while. I had directed a very low budget movie called 'The Ape' and it was playing at a festival in Austin. Judd was there and he came and saw it and it's kind of funny.
Seth Rogen and James Franco in a scene from Pineapple Express.
Rogen: I think it's funny.
Franco: Thank you. After he saw it he said, 'I miss the funny Franco.' I hadn't really done a comedy other than 'The Ape' since 'Freaks and Geeks'. So then we started talking about ideas and he said, 'Well, I'm going to do this movie "Knocked Up" with Seth, but after that you guys should do a movie together.'
I read it and thought that it was very funny, but I said, 'Oh, Seth, you get to play the good role, or the role that I want – Saul.' They were like, 'Nah. You can play Saul.' I think around that time I met David, or well we all met at 'Superbad' and Judd said, 'I'm thinking about having him direct.' Sounded like a good idea.
During a recent interview, Seth Rogen sounded open to the possibility of a Pineapple Express sequel (even though, of course, the film itself is yet to come out).
"They've been wanting us to do a sequel to Superbad for so long â" but we've held off. We eventually said no. But this one, it's not a precious coming-of-age story like Superbad, it's a weed action-movie and if it did well, and they gave us like $50 million dollars (as opposed to the $26 million we got for this one) we could benefit from that."
Pineapple Express opens on August 8. We'll wait to see how funny that movie is before we weigh in on the concept of a sequel.
While his casting is still stirring debate among fans of The Green Hornet, Seth Rogen was recently asked what he liked about that comic book character.
Here's his reply:
We've always wanted to make this hero sidekick movie. That was always an unexplored area to us and for years we've actually been trying to write a movie that was about a hero and his sidekick and then when we heard that "The Green Hornet" movie was up for grabs we thought that could be the most perfect way to do this story because he is the only kind of hero who's sidekick is actually more known than he is.
We kind of thought that it would be a good way to tell this relationship story and just do a big crazy action movie basically.
Fans are still debating the merits of Seth Rogen as The Green Hornet.
While the mere concept of Zack and Miri Make a Porno - a comedy about two platonic friends attempting to raise money by making an adult movie - sounds hilarious enough, star Seth Rogan said he wouldn't sign on for the film unless the dialogue was "loose."
In other words, writer/director Kevin Smith - the man behind Dogma and Mallrats - had to agree to let the actors freelance and improvise the lines a bit.
Once Smith agreed, Rogen was on board... and the rest appears to be comedic gold!
Seth Rogen believes in funny, natural dialogue.
As long as the MPAA gives Zack and Miri Make a Porno an R-rating, Rogen told MTV News that audiences will find a new voice from Smith on October 31.
"I've seen the movie, and there's a lot of improvised stuff in it, and it gives it that less-stilted feel. It feels more like a naturalistic movie," Rogen said. "[In some comedies] you can just see the guy behind the keyboard writing it, you feel as though you see the guys reading it and memorizing it, and I don't like that allâ¦If it's a movie that's supposed to be real and take place in the real world, I need to feel like the characters are actually having these conversations.
"[I felt like that] with Juno. I love that movie, but again it feels really written to me; it's really clever how one line leads directly to the next one, but life just isn't like that."
