If you know the backstory of Judd Apatow’s life – before he was the hitmaking Mayor Comedy in Hollywood, he was a struggling stand-up comedian that once lived with Adam Sandler during the early lean years – it’ll strike you as obvious that his next project, the still as-of-yet “untitled Sandler project,” is going to take its cues from his personal life.
Sandler and Seth Rogen (the two principal leads) recently talked to MTV about the autobiographical-sounding film, that’s expected to shoot in September, and Rogen revealed that the plot will center around, “stand-up comedians.” Obviously this is exactly how Sandler and Apatow cut their teeth in the Hollywood comedy scene – by grinding it out in the trial-by-fire stand up clubs (So Sandler is the Apatow stand-in and Rogen is the Sandler surrogate, right? Must be Leslie Mann has already confirmed she’ll be playing Sandler’s love interest in the film. That’s rather convenient and revisionist. 😉
Apatow is actually forcing Sandler to write a real stand-up routine for the film and the wacky comedian isn’t totally pleased about it. “I’ve got to write an act again. It’s been a long time. I haven’t done stand-up in, like, 10 years. Even more,” the MTV’s fourth-ever Generation Award winner said. “That’s why I want to kill Judd Apatow right now. I was so much happier doing nothing!”
Apparently you’ll be able to see Sandler in L.A. comedy clubs this summer if you’re lucky enough to catch what will surely be secret unannounced gigs. “You will see me bomb for 15 minutes and walk off [the stage] and punch Judd,” Sandler joked to MTV.
Apatow has already hinted the film is going to be another comedy with heart and his most “adult” film to date, (“It’s a relationship movie,” he told MTV in March. “It’s not a big high-concept movie. It’s hopefully going to be a very, very funny drama…a hilarious drama”), but Sandler warns there’s going to be more of an emotional epicenter than we’ve seen before saying the film will be “pretty heartbreaking” in parts.
“It’s very, very funny. [Me and] my friends who have read the script, all of us were baffled how funny it is,” Sandler said. “But there’s a lot of stuff going on in the movie. Every movie, I’m trying to find a way to go deeper, to tell stories about subjects that are important and make them less and less broad while making them equally as funny. [This film is] another step in that progression.”
Update: Chud (via Slash) is reporting that Apatow wants to cast Eric Bana as Mann’s boyfriend (we must that’s before she eventually ends up with Sandler) which is pretty perfect considering there’s a scene in “Knocked Up” where the dudes in the film go on a riff about the sexy bad-ass jewness of Bana in “Munich” (“If any of us get laid tonight, it’s because of Eric Bana in ‘Munich’ ,” Jonah Hill joked in the movie). Great little image also via Slash.