Seven year on from his anointment as a movie star with “Knocked Up” and “Superbad” (and fifteen from his first appearance on screens in “Freaks & Geeks,” and Seth Rogen is still riding high. Sure, there have been moments when his projects didn’t work out (“The Green Hornet,” “The Guilt Trip,” but for the most part, he’s continued to make smart choices, and particularly in the last couple of years, as he’s taken his career more into his own hands (and those of writing/producing/directing partner Evan Goldberg), and set out to make lower budget movies that have turned out to be hugely profitable, as well as critically acclaimed.
Last summer “This Is The End,” which served as Rogen and Goldberg’s directorial debut, was a big hit, and this summer’s “Neighbors” (in which Rogen starred and the pair produced together) was even bigger. And they’re not hanging about, as this fall will see the release of their second film as directors, “The Interview,” in which Rogen once again teams up with pal James Franco.
The duo play a successful talk show host (Franco) and his producer (Rogen) who score an interview with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un (Randall Park), only to be tasked with the CIA with killing him. Lizzy Caplan and “Veep“‘s Timothy Simons both star, and now we get our first look at the movie thanks to a new trailer, as well as the super-awesome poster you can see below.
“It’s our attempt to make our version of a big political spy thriller,” Rogen told us last month, “but starring me and Franco. It’s kind of the formula we always do which is we take a genre we like and add idiots to it. It’s like “This is the End” is a horror movie with idiots in it and “Pineapple Express” is an eighties action movie with idiots in it. So this is our “3 Days of the Condor” with idiots in it. And Kim Jong-un is one of the main characters in the movie, which is something that I’m curious about how people will react to.” Goldberg added “It’s really fucking crazy. I don’t know how to describe the tone. It’s based in a real situation, in a real place, with real characters. And we’re getting real news anchors to participate and play off real world politics. The thing at our company is make it a little smarter than your last one, but also way dumber. Always make it way dumber at the same time, and Franco is unleashed in this. I’ve never seen any actor do what Franco is doing in this movie. He just went fucking crazy. There’s some takes that are unusable because he went so far, but we always let him go as far as he could because at minute 6 he would be unbelievable.”
We were already on board, and after the trailer, we’re even more so. The film will open on October 10th, and you can check out the teaser below.
