Comic-Con: Pineapple Express Dudes Clear the Air

Judd Apatow, Seth Rogen and crew promote stoner movie at Comic-Con

By Luke Y. Thompson Jul 27, 2008 2:05 PMTags
Pineapple ExpressDale Robinette/Columbia Pictures

It may not be good news that at least a third of the Comic-Con Hall H audience bailed when Judd Apatow showed up to promote Pineapple Express, but somehow, we still think the stoner action/comedy has a chance.

Quoth star Seth Rogen: "We felt close to the material. A movie with guys smoking joints and shooting AK-47s, that's the kind of movie I wanna go see right now!"

Art-house director David Gordon Green might seem like an odd choice to helm this, but he was gung-ho.

"It really was an opportunity to wreck cars and have shoot-outs," says the filmmaker. His improvisational style worked well for the cast, too.

"You can say anything, which works good, because you don't have to remember your lines," says costar Danny McBride, who also worked with Green on the director's indie film All the Real Girls.

Adds Rogen: "You don't even have to know how to read!"

Green says one of the directions he gave McBride was that he had to have shaved armpits. When the actor asked why, Green responded, "That's what you have to figure out."

All was revealed in a clip shown, where McBride's character explains that having shaved pits "makes me aerodynamic when I fight!"

Doesn't save him from having a bong broken over his head, though.

So what's next for Rogen? Will he take a break from stoners and drunks?

"We're doing the Green Hornet next," he says, "but he does a lot of ketamine, so that doesn't really count."