Seth Rogen recently appeared on “Watch What Happens Live” and wrestled with the prospect of making a sequel to “The Pineapple Express,” his beloved 2008 stoner comedy that grossed more than $100 million at the worldwide box office.
“Maybe,” Rogen said when asked about making a sequel. “We can probably sell it to streaming or something… There could be [big demand]. You never know. I don’t know. I’m not great with sequels. It’s not where my mind goes, but maybe one day.”
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Rogen has avoided making sequels to a majority of his most iconic comedies, including “Superbad.” However, there was a time when he considered making “The Pineapple Express 2.” Rogen said on “The Howard Stern Show” years ago that he pitched a stoner comedy sequel but Sony Pictures wasn’t interested, most likely due to budget concerns.
“We tried to make one and thanks to the Sony hack you can actually find the email when Sony decided to kill the movie and not make it,” Rogen revealed at the time. “It was something we were very open to several years ago, but Sony was not that interested in it… I think we probably wanted too much money. Studios, they don’t like giving away money.”
Rogen’s comment was more or less confirmed by a report from The Daily Beast, which leaked emails between “Pineapple Express” producer Judd Apatow and former Sony Pictures co-chairman Amy Pascal that showed their sequel discussions. The report mentioned that Apatow allegedly wanted a $50 million budget for a sequel (nearly double the reported budget for the original movie), but Sony executives demanded it be kept at $45 million. Discussion for the sequel fizzled out after that.
“The Pineapple Express,” directed by David Gordon Green from a script by Rogen and Evan Goldberg, stars Rogen as a process server and James Franco as his marijuana dealer. The two get stoned and witness a murder, prompting them to flee hitmen and corrupt police officers. Danny McBride, Gary Cole and Rosie Perez round out the cast.
Whether or not a “Pineapple Express” sequel gets made could also depend on Rogen and Franco, former collaborators who appear to be no longer friends. Franco told Variety last year that their friendship is definitively over. Rogen told The Sunday Times in 2021 that he did not plan to work with Franco again after sexual misconduct allegations made against Franco.
“No. I haven’t talked to Seth. I love Seth, we had 20 great years together, but I guess it’s over,” Franco told Variety in October 2024. “And not for lack of trying. I’ve told him how much he’s meant to me.”
When asked earlier this year by Esquire about Franco’s comment and how it felt “to have something so personal become so public,” Rogen did not want to discuss the topic outside of saying: “Honestly, I absorb so little media that it really wasn’t on my radar.”
Rogen and Franco got their starts together as cast members on NBC’s short-lived cult classic “Freaks and Geeks.” They went on to star opposite one another in classic comedies such as “Pineapple Express” and “This Is the End.” Rogen produced and starred in Franco’s 2017 directorial effort “The Disaster Artist,” which ended up being their final project together.
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