Seth Rogen Claims ‘Superbad’ ‘Would Never Happen Today In A Hundred Million Years’

In a recent interview with The New York Times, Seth Rogen, who has found recent success writing and co-creating the Apple TV+ series The Studio, discussed one of his earliest successes, the classic teen comedy Superbad, released in 2007. Discussing the film, which he wrote with his longtime collaborator, Evan Goldberg, Rogen explained that it was indicative of a Hollywood era that was more willing to take risks, in response to a question about whether modern Hollywood is more risk-averse.

“When we made that movie [Superbad], they bought our script, they said it would have a $20 million budget, and it would start shooting that year and would come out in August of the following year. That’s it,” Rogen explained. “We cast the movie, we found a director for the movie, we made it according to their schedule, and we released it on the date they chose,” he further explained. “That would never happen today in a hundred million years. No studio would just buy a script, give it a release date, cast it, and then make it.”

Rogen then explains further why this is the case, expressing his frustration with modern Hollywood’s obsession with name recognition among both the cast and filmmakers. Here’s the full quote:

“Now everything has to be in place before they’ll decide whether or not they’re making it: ‘Who’s the director? ‘Who are the actors? Are they famous enough?’ ‘Do they have big enough names?’ ‘If not, then we’ve got to get different ones, or else we won’t make it. And I know we want it to start shooting in April and release it next summer, but if we don’t have the right actors, we’re not going to do that, because we think these actors will get us more money than these actors, even though they might not be the funniest actors for the role.'”

Seth Rogen can next be seen in The Invite, a chamber-piece comedy directed and starring Olivia Wilde, alongside Penelope Cruz and Edward Norton. After receiving rave reviews at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, The Invite will be released in select theaters by A24 on June 26th, before releasing wide on July 10th.