Seth Rogen Provides Updates on 'This is Forty' and 'Jay and Seth vs the Apocalypse'

Wednesday, 07 September 2011 14:38 Written by Jordan DeSaulnier

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Seth Rogen Provides Updates on 'This is Forty' and 'Jay and Seth vs the Apocalypse'

Writer-director-producer Judd Apatow essentially brought Seth Rogan to the world. When he was just an underage smartass, Rogen played a caustic supporting character on the Apatow-executive produced series Freaks and Geeks, which was canceled after one season. He next appeared on Apatow's similarly short-lived collegiate comedy Undeclared. Following his scene-stealing turn in The 40 Year Old Virgin, Apatow cast him as the lead in Knocked Up, and Rogen's been a ubiquitous comedic presence ever since. If you've been wondering whether Rogen will appear in Apatow's new film or whether his directorial debut Jay and Seth vs. The Apocalypse will ever happen, the answers are apparently "No" and "Yes."

Apatow is currently in the midst of shooting a comedy-drama tentatively titled This Is Forty. Since it is a spin-off of 2007's Knocked Up, following Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann as married couple Pete and Debbie, it made sense to wonder if Rogen and Katherine Heigl would reprise their roles as Ben Stone and Alison Scott, if only for a brief cameo.

While promoting the upcoming dramedy 50/50, which he produced with writing partner Evan Goldberg and stars in alongside Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Rogen confirmed to Movies.com that he won't be showing up in This Is Forty. "Yeah I'm not in it, but I went to visit the set and it looked hilarious," he said. "It was a good choice, honestly, because I think it would've confused people, but I'm really looking forward to seeing it; I thought the script was unbelievably funny."

Interestingly, the film's cast does include Jason Segel and Charlene Yi, both of whom appeared in Knocked Up. Segel's lothario character was attracted to Debbie, while Yi had no scenes with either Rudd or Mann. So this begs the question: Will Segel and Yi be playing the same roles, or are they appearing as entirely new characters? Keep in mind that in the Forgetting Sarah Marshall spin-off Get Him to the Greek, which Apatow also produced, Jonah Hill starred as a character completely different from the one he established in the first film.

Around the time of Knocked Up's release, Rogen and fellow Canadian/Undeclared veteran Jay Baruchel appeared in a trailer for a fictitious comedy titled Jay and Seth vs. The Apocalypse, featuring the two bickering in a postapocalyptic hovel. Shortly thereafter, it was announced that the trailer would be expanded into a feature film. Gradually, though, it began to seem like one of those projects that simply disappeared and would never actually happen.

Not did Rogen confirm that he and co-writer Goldberg will be making their feature directorial debut on the film, but that production is set to begin in February 2012. He said that the scope of the "oddly personal" film has now expanded. "It's now much more than just Jay and Seth," he explained. "There's many other people vs. the apocalypse now. It's gonna be crazy."

Here's the Jay and Seth vs. The Apocalypse trailer to refresh your memory: