By Fred Topel Aug 8, 2008, 16:47 GMT
Marijuana may be the natural cinematic evolution from alcohol. Seth Rogen's "Superbad" followed the pursuit of teenagers trying to buy liquor, an idea he and writing partner Evan Goldberg had since they were 13.
In "Pineapple Express," Rogen and Goldberg take a pothead (Rogen) and his dealer (James Franco) on an action packed road trip. "We didn't go out and say, 'Let's get a weed movie' or pursue the drug movie, but action more so," said Goldberg.
It turns out, this is the genre where their true affinity lies. "I mean, the movies that I grew up on were not comedies for the most part I would say," said Rogen. "They were, but my mother's favorite movies were 'Die Hard' and 'Total Recall' and 'Under Siege' I remember seeing in the movie theater when I was way too young to see it. I remember seeing 'Lethal Weapon 2' in the movie theater. So those are my favorite types of movies really. So it's not hard at all to write action."
Goldberg added, "'The Last Boy Scout,' also a lot of bad action movies from the '80's."
With their action script, Rogen and Goldberg didn't go to Michael Bay or Tony Scott, someone known for the kind of big, loud action movies they enjoyed growing up. Their producer, Judd Apatow, brought them David Gordon Green.
"When we did 'Pineapple,' I kept marveling at the fact that the studio was letting us do all that stuff," said Rogen. "I think if it wasn't someone from a background that wasn't so far removed from the studios then he wouldn't even have been trying to do that. To me, a movie's most fun when it kind of feels like no one's in charge and that it is just like an independent film and everyone's kind of working together to try to make it work."
Green's previous credits include "Snow Angels, Undertow" and "All the Real Girls," all films full of angst and downbeat drama. The panic of potheads thrust into car chases was a welcome reprieve for him.
"Making it was a blast," said Green. "I'd kind of gotten to the point professionally where I was pretty emotionally exhausted from making dramatic films. So I was looking to do a comedy and found a group of guys that were really supportive of my interests in it though it was a little outside of my wheel house."
Producer Apatow brought Green onto one of his own sets to help initiate him into the world of improvisational comedy. "Strangely, I visited the set of 'Knocked Up' and met Seth and Evan and Judd and Shauna [Robertson] and it was amazing how much their process seemed familiar to me, translating that into the work that I had done and giving actors a lot of freedom and doing a lot of improvisation and a total respect and collaboration with all the department heads and all the crews and just really making it an enjoyable industry rather than just clocking in and doing a job which a lot of movies are. We really decided to blend the two teams and see what would happen and it was a great opportunity for all of us to do something outside of the expected and contrast and push each other to do our best. We had a lot of fun. "
"Pineapple Express" has to compete with "The Dark Knight"'s Bat-gadgets and "Indiana Jones"'s old school whip action. Green had to make it look big, with far less resources than Steven Spielberg or Christopher Nolan had at their disposal.
"Honestly, the biggest challenge was that we had a comedy budget. We really got excited the more we got into the development of it about blowing stuff up and having shoot outs. That stuff costs money. When you want to have a car chase and they give you a day to do it and you say, 'Well, we need like a week –' and then you compromise and do it in four. It's all the kind of negotiating the financial things, but we were really fortunate to work with a studio that was really supportive of these guys."
The production got as far as it did because any studio head paying attention could see that Apatow and Rogen were ready to burst. "It was before 'Superbad' and 'Knocked Up' had even come out, but everyone just felt really great about them and the energy surrounding Seth and Evan and Judd, all of these guys," said Green. "And the idea of getting [James] Franco back into comedy as well. Then also it was bringing in Danny [McBride] who I went to college with and a few new faces like Amber [Heard] and Gary Cole and Rosie Perez. It was just making a lot of friends and trying something new. The challenges were just hilarious things to confront anyway and everyone just kind of looked at each other and would shrug and say, 'Lets just jump into it and do our best.'"
Danny McBride can also be seen this summer in his debut film, "The Foot Fist Way," which got picked up by Will Ferrell and Adam McKay for distribution at Sundance. He is also part of the "Tropic Thunder" ensemble which premieres next week. In "Pineapple Express," he plays Red, an associate in the drug scene who finds himself pulled on both sides of the crime plot.
"One of the first things when David asked if I wanted to do this movie is he said, 'The first thing is that you're going to have shave your armpits,'" recalled McBride. "I was like, 'Why, David?' He said, 'Well, that's what you're going to need to figure out.'"
McBride gets in on the action when the heroes visit his house and loyalties are tested. "It was pretty hardcore. We would just beat each other all day long. Break fingers, yeah, it was fun."
Having written the scene for himself, Rogen enjoyed getting to act it out. "That was like five days of shooting," said Rogen. "We just beat each other up. It was a good time."
Props were involved, as McBride took a bong to the head. "That was great," he said. "Franco is a dedicated actor and he obviously didn't pull anything. It was a breakaway glass bong, but it was actually filled with water and so it had a little weight to it."
Visiting the set, Goldberg found it surreal to see his words come to life. "I remember standing there watching as they ran through it the first time," said the co-writer. "It was like, 'Wow, okay. We're doing this.'"
Red continues to suffer physically throughout the film and barely survives. This is better than he fared in the original script. "I was glad," said McBride. "When they gave it to me I was like, 'I die thirty pages in? You motherf***ers.'"
Rogen and Goldberg was impressed enough with his performance that they actually wrote McBride back in, even though it made little sense. "I will say that in the original script Danny did die that first time that he gets shot," said Rogen. "Then we were like, 'Ah, f***. We want Danny to come back.' So then it was like, 'What if he lived?!'"
With guys beating each other up, smoking pot and making dirty jokes, there was only a little room for female energy. There was Rosie Perez as the corrupt cop on their tail, and Amber Heard as the hero's high school girlfriend, pulled into this madness and just trying to make her relationship work.
"Well, they thought of this brilliant pot movie, an action movie and I guess they figured in a small role for a blonde and they say that I did my part well," said Heard. "I added tears to the movie. But it was really fun. I mean, how could I not have fun? It was exactly what you think it would be [laughs]."
"Pineapple Express" is now playing.
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