io9: judd apatow

Adam Sandler's Fake Movies Should Send A Clear Message To Hollywood: No.

Meredith Woerner — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 07:00:00 PDT

Similar to Ben Stiller's fake movies from Tropic Thunder, Judd Apatow has created a gaggle of science fiction comedies fake actor George Simmons has starred in, including a Mer-man epic, somewhere out there a screenwriter is crying.

Adam Sandler's fake comedian George Simmons appears in the latest Judd Apatow film, Funny People. I'm a fan of fake movies-within-movies, if only to tell people that their clever idea about a slacker janitor accidentally getting launched into space, is a bad idea — a BAD IDEA. Let this be a message to Hollywood, if there was any doubt that Little Man 2 is a crap idea, simply consult these posters. They're making fun of it for a reason.

Merman Clip:

Re-Do Clip:

George Simmons in "Re-Do" from Justin Long

New Ghostbusters To Feature Old Ghostbusters

Graeme McMillan — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 06:30:00 PDT

No sooner is a new Ghostbusters movie announced, than rumors start to fly around the internet about whether the new installment will be a reboot, a sequel, replacing the original cast or retaining them, and whether anyone will, this time around, be afraid of no ghosts. Thankfully, co-creator Harold Ramis was on hand to offer a particularly ee cummings-esque helpful update to the confused faithful.

Writing to the Chicago Tribune despite the apparent loss of his Caps Lock key, Ramis revealed that at least a couple of the original cast are definitely onboard for the third movie:

yes, columbia is developing a script for GB3 with my year one writing partners, gene stupnitsky and lee eisenberg. judd apatow is co-producing year one and has made several other films for sony, so of course the studio is hoping to tap into some of the same acting talent. aykroyd, ivan reitman and i are consulting at this point, and according to dan, bill murray is willing to be involved on some level. he did record his dialogue for the new ghostbusters video game, as did danny and i, and ernie hudson. the concept is that the old ghostbusters would appear in the film in some mentor capacity. not much else to say at this point. everyone is confident a decent script can be written and i guess we'll take it from there.

The same acting talent as Apatow's other movies? So that would mean Paul Rudd, Jason Siegel and the by-now ubiquitous Seth Rogen for the main roles, I guess... but who will be the new Annie Potts?

Harold Ramis confirms 'Ghostbusters III' [Chicago Tribune]

Judd Apatow Thinks Fanboys Can't Handle Cancer

grae — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 07:40:02 PST

Will long-awaited feelgood nerd movie Fanboys find itself swallowed by the Judd Apatow comedy juggernaut? That's the rumor doing the rounds right now, according to Ain't It Cool. The movie - which stars Heroes' Kristen Bell and features cameos from a slumming-it Carrie Fisher and a grateful for the paycheck Billy Dee Williams - centers around five friends in the nineties breaking into Skywalker Ranch to steal a pre-release print of The Phantom Menace for a dying friend... or, at least, it did before test audiences decided that they didn't like that whole "dying friend" thing.

Enter Shauna Robertson, Judd Apatow's producing partner, who's been brought in by studio boss Harvey Weinstein to make the movie more palatable to audiences. And according to the AIC post, that makes it less palatable to those closest to its heart:

Apparently the Apatow people have done research which says most people won't laugh for 5 or 10 minutes after cancer is mentioned so they want to do away with the entire cancer subplot and I've heard they have a version which edited out the entire cancer plot. This means it's just a group of punk kids breaking into Skywalker Ranch to steal a movie to see it before it comes out. Why would I root for these kids to steal the film, if the noble reason for doing it is gone?

Considering Andy's action figure collection in The 40 Year Old Virgin, it's not as if sympathy for the geek is an unknown quality to Robertson, but time and more test audiences will tell whether this ends up more Walk Hard than Knocked Up.

The Weinsteins effing the f out of FANBOYS?!? [Aint It Cool.com]