We should get paid for Apatow publicity.
Producer/writer/director Judd Apatow is a smart and crafty dude. Not only does he have a stable of extremely loyal actors (he gave these guys careers), he’s basically created a veritable cottage industry of talent by getting two’fers and putting them to work to write “comedy of embarrassment” scripts for him to make and get rich off (they basically get rich when they sign on for other projects like Muppet movies).
Seth Rogen has been writing since “Undeclared,” and has co-penned a ton of Apatow films “Knocked-Up,” Superbad,”) Jason Segel co-wrote “Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” and it’s only a matter of time before Martin Starr and Jay Baruchel get put to work too.
But the next immediate goon from the stable “encouraged” to write? “Pineapple Express” star James Franco who’s been writing with his brother Dave. EW has the goods.
EW: Are either of you guys working on more mainstream screenplays that you might work with Judd on?
JAMES: We have a script that Davey and I worked on. We developed it, and then Davey finished it. He’s at USC, although he has not finished yet. He’s in his fifth year.
DAVE: Someone here’s almost 30 and he hasn’t finished [college] yet.
JAMES: I will be finishing and going to New York for grad school next year. I don’t know if Davey will be. And by the way, the accumulated years I’ve spent in school have been less than four years, and he’s had over five years.
Tell me a little about this script you’re working on…
JAMES: [Dave] finished the script and I think it is up Apatow Alley, and we’ll see what happens.What’s it about?
DAVE: We took a lot from some ’80s movies like Stand by Me, The Goonies, those kinds of films. It’s just a couple young kids going on a journey, kind of a coming-of-age story. But a lot raunchier and a lot more R-rated! I think there’d be small parts for both of us. But the central characters are all 11 or 12 years old.That’s two Franco posts in one day, we must have a crush or something. Oh yeah, he made out with Sean Penn in “Harvey Milk” too.