Seth Rogen: 10 films beyond the laugh

This is a researched feature, separate from Nick Atwal’s personal film reviews. Nick’s own notes are marked “Where I was.”

Most careers have a hometown. Seth Rogen’s has a high school. He was born in Vancouver on April 15, 1982, and raised there, according to The Canadian Encyclopedia. At 12 he met Evan Goldberg through a mutual friend at bar mitzvah class, and the two became writing partners. Their production company, Point Grey Pictures, is named after the Vancouver high school they attended. Only one film here, 50/50, has a documented Vancouver shoot, but the city runs through the work, starting with Superbad, which began as a script by two Point Grey Secondary students.

The focus is the screen roles, from the comedies he wrote with Goldberg to dramatic supporting parts for Danny Boyle and Steven Spielberg. Each entry follows four threads: the film, Vancouver and B.C.’s screen industry at the time, the wider Hollywood business and where Rogen stood in his life and career. Box office is North American unless stated; sources are at the end.

1. Superbad (2007)

   2007 · Directed by Greg Mottola · Officer Michaels

   Two high-school friends named Seth and Evan, in a script by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg. Subtle, it isn’t. Jonah Hill and Michael Cera play the pair, Christopher Mintz-Plasse is their classmate Fogell, and Greg Mottola directed. CBC reported that the story was loosely based on the writers’ own teenage attempts to buy alcohol and meet girls. Rogen took a supporting role as Officer Michaels, one of two police officers, opposite Bill Hader’s Officer Slater.

   It premiered at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre on August 13, opened at No. 1 on August 17, 2007, with $33.1 million, held the top spot the next weekend and finished with about $121.5 million in North America and about $170 million worldwide, against a reported production budget of $17.5 million.

   Vancouver in 2007

   Superbad’s roots are in Vancouver. Rogen and Goldberg started writing it as teenagers at Point Grey Secondary School in the mid-to-late 1990s: at about 13, according to The Canadian Encyclopedia, the pair’s Canada’s Walk of Fame profile and the Writers Guild of America, or in Grade 10, as CBC reported in 2007. The WGA and CBC both tie the material to their Point Grey years.

   Some of the names are real. Fogell is named after Sammy Fogell, a Point Grey friend, who told CBC in 2007, at 25, that he found the film funny and had given the writers some grief for making him the target of so many jokes. Another former Point Grey student, Steven Glanzberg, gets a one-line joke; the Tri-City News reported in 2022 that he had become a family lawyer in Coquitlam. The Walk of Fame profile adds a detail only a production city could supply: watching film crews at their high school helped convince the two that a career in movies was realistic. In most cities, movies happen somewhere else. In Vancouver, they turned up at school.

   Hollywood in 2007

   Superbad was Rogen’s second collaboration with Judd Apatow in theatres that summer, 11 weeks after Knocked Up. Rogen had met Apatow through the TV series Freaks and Geeks and later sent him the script, which Apatow produced with Shauna Robertson as a Columbia Pictures and Apatow Company production.

   Rogen in 2007

   Rogen turned 25 in April 2007. Superbad was the first screenplay he and Goldberg had written together, and it took roughly a decade to reach the screen.

   Why it matters

   For a city used to seeing its streets stand in for somewhere else, Superbad is a rare thing: a Vancouver high-school story that reached the screen with its friends’ names intact. Usually the city is the backdrop. Here it’s the source.

2. Knocked Up (2007)

   2007 · Written and directed by Judd Apatow · Ben Stone

   Ben Stone (Rogen) is a slacker. Alison Scott (Katherine Heigl) is a newly promoted on-air personality. Their one-night stand leads to an unplanned pregnancy. Judd Apatow wrote, produced and directed this romantic comedy, which gives Rogen the lead and asks him to be funny and believable as someone forced to grow up fast.

   Universal released it on June 1, 2007. It opened to about $30.7 million, second that weekend behind a Pirates of the Caribbean sequel. There’s no shame in losing to pirates. Box Office Mojo records about $148.8 million in North America and $219.9 million worldwide.

   Vancouver in 2007

   Rogen was becoming a Hollywood lead just as his hometown industry came under strain. The Canadian dollar reached parity with the U.S. dollar in the fall of 2007, and industry coverage tied falling B.C. production spending to the strong currency, the U.S. writers’ strike and competition from other jurisdictions. Work paid for in American dollars, from location shooting to post-production, was especially exposed.

   Hollywood in 2007

   Knocked Up and Superbad came from the same circle of collaborators around Apatow and made summer 2007 a high point for the group. Then came the writers’ strike of 2007–08.

   Rogen in 2007

   Rogen was 25, but the comedy had started in Vancouver. Britannica says he began stand-up on the local club circuit at 13; The Globe and Mail’s review of his 2021 essay collection, Yearbook, says it opens with his start in stand-up at 12, in a household full of SCTV, Billy Crystal routines and John Candy films. A role on Apatow’s Freaks and Geeks took him to Los Angeles in 1999, and Apatow’s next series, Undeclared, gave him an acting part and a writing job. Knocked Up turned that apprenticeship into a studio lead.

   Why it matters

   One summer, two proofs: Knocked Up made Rogen a leading man, and Superbad showed he was also a writer to watch. Both arrived as his hometown industry headed into two hard years. His timing was perfect. His hometown’s wasn’t.

3. 50/50 (2011)

   2011 · Directed by Jonathan Levine · Kyle · Shot in Vancouver

   Adam (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is a young man diagnosed with cancer. His best friend Kyle (Rogen) handles it with jokes. Will Reiser wrote it from his own experience: he was diagnosed with a rare spinal cancer in 2005, at 24, and his friend Rogen helped him cope by joking about it. The Globe and Mail reported that Rogen and Goldberg urged Reiser to write the story, and Kyle is based on Rogen himself.

   Jonathan Levine directed on a reported budget of about $8 million, and The Globe and Mail called the film, released on September 30, 2011, critically acclaimed. The friendship lets Rogen play humour as a form of support, and the jokes land differently because the film knows what they’re covering.

   Vancouver in 2011

   This one came home. 50/50 was shot in Vancouver, according to The Globe and Mail; Vancouver Is Awesome reported that filming came after the 2010 Winter Olympics, over an original five-week shoot under the working title I’m With Cancer (later Live With It). The city plays Seattle: crews covered a Cambie Street sign with one for Seattle’s Highway 99, and reshoots on November 1, 2010, put Gordon-Levitt on the Stanley Park seawall near Lumberman’s Arch.

   It came during a lean stretch. Playback, reporting a provincial industry study, said B.C. production spending fell to about $1 billion in 2010 from $1.3 billion in 2009, citing tax credits in central Canada, the rising dollar and a slowdown during the Olympics.

   Hollywood in 2011

   The same year brought The Green Hornet, which Rogen co-wrote with Goldberg. 50/50 was its opposite in almost every way: small, personal and drawn from a true story.

   Rogen in 2011

   Rogen was 29. In a joint interview, he and Reiser said they had been in their early-to-mid 20s at the diagnosis, without the emotional maturity to treat it seriously, so they found ways to laugh about it. The film turns that into a performance. The weekend it opened, in early October 2011, Rogen married the writer and actor Lauren Miller, his partner since 2004, at a winery in Sonoma County, California.

   Why it matters

   50/50 is the one film on this list with a documented Vancouver shoot, and the most personal: a friend’s cancer, written at Rogen’s urging and filmed in the city where he grew up. Sometimes a joke is the most serious thing a friend can offer.

4. Pineapple Express (2008)

   2008 · Directed by David Gordon Green · Dale Denton

   It all comes down to a dropped joint. Rogen plays Dale Denton, a stoner process server who, serving a subpoena, witnesses a drug kingpin and a corrupt police officer commit a murder. He drops his joint as he flees, the kingpin traces its rare strain to Dale’s dealer, Saul Silver (James Franco), and both end up on the run from hitmen. Littering has consequences. David Gordon Green directed this buddy comedy; Rogen and Goldberg wrote it from a story they developed with Judd Apatow, who also produced. Franco was nominated for a Golden Globe for best actor in a comedy or musical.

   Released in August 2008 on a reported budget of about $26 million to $27 million, it was the pair’s next screenplay to reach theatres after Superbad. Its mix of comic premise and action set pieces pointed toward the larger genre experiments they would try later.

   Vancouver in 2008

   Back home, 2008 was hard. Playback reported that offshore work slowed in the second half of the year because of the strong Canadian dollar and a Screen Actors Guild contract dispute, and that Vancouver’s post-production houses, many dependent on American clients, felt the recession. B.C. Film Commission data later showed 174 domestic productions worth $365 million in 2008, a level that fell sharply the following year.

   Hollywood in 2008

   Hollywood spent 2008 between labour disputes, out of the writers’ strike and into the actors’ contract fight, as the recession arrived. Franco’s Golden Globe nomination gave an Apatow-circle comedy a place in that awards season.

   Rogen in 2008

   Rogen was 26. In about 14 months he had led Knocked Up, co-written Superbad and co-written and starred in Pineapple Express, setting the pattern for his career: performing in films he and Goldberg wrote.

   Why it matters

   Pineapple Express is where the Rogen–Goldberg partnership showed it could build a star vehicle for Rogen himself. The teenagers who watched film crews at their high school were now making the movies, while the Vancouver industry that helped convince them absorbed a strong dollar and a recession.

5. The Fabelmans (2022)

   2022 · Directed by Steven Spielberg · Bennie Loewy

   Steven Spielberg called The Fabelmans the most personal film he had ever made: a coming-of-age story, written with Tony Kushner, about a young aspiring filmmaker, Sammy Fabelman (Gabriel LaBelle). Rogen plays Bennie Loewy, the best friend and co-worker of Sammy’s father, Burt, and the children’s “honorary uncle,” who becomes an important figure in Sammy’s life.

   When Spielberg phoned, Rogen has said, he assumed the news was bad. Instead, Spielberg told him that he and Kushner had written a film with a role they kept discussing for him. Rogen has also said he didn’t think bringing his own personality to the character would help, and that he tried instead to capture a particular energy. For once, the persona stayed home.

   Toronto and Vancouver in 2022

   The film’s Canadian chapter was in Toronto. It premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 10, 2022, at the Princess of Wales Theatre, Spielberg’s first launch at TIFF. He took his time. On September 18, after ten days of in-person screenings, it won the audience-voted People’s Choice Award, with Sarah Polley’s Women Talking first runner-up and Rian Johnson’s Glass Onion second. In Rogen’s hometown, Creative BC put B.C.’s 2022 production spending at about $3.3 billion, a level the 2023 U.S. strikes would cut to about $2.3 billion.

   Hollywood in 2022

   The People’s Choice Award has become an early Oscar indicator; coverage of the 2022 prize pointed to Nomadland, which won it in 2020 before winning best picture. The Fabelmans reached select theatres on November 11, 2022, won the Golden Globes for best drama and best director in January 2023, and earned seven Academy Award nominations, including best picture. It won none. The box office was modest too: about $43.3 million worldwide, by The Numbers’ count, against a production budget of about $40 million, a sign of how hard adult dramas found theatrical audiences then.

   Rogen in 2022

   Rogen was 40 at the premiere. The year before, Crown had published Yearbook, his essay collection, which The Globe and Mail reviewed as a mix of Hollywood anecdotes and youthful memories. Fifteen years after Knocked Up, he was working for Spielberg in a dramatic supporting role.

   Why it matters

   The Fabelmans is the strongest evidence on this list that Rogen’s range extends to drama under a major director, and its TIFF win gave the role a Canadian launch. Spielberg made his most personal film and called Rogen for it. That’s a long way from the Vancouver club circuit.

6. Steve Jobs (2015)

   2015 · Directed by Danny Boyle · Steve Wozniak

   Danny Boyle’s Steve Jobs, written by Aaron Sorkin from Walter Isaacson’s biography, stars Michael Fassbender as Jobs, with Kate Winslet as the Mac marketing head Joanna Hoffman, Jeff Daniels as John Sculley and Rogen as Steve Wozniak. It covers 14 years through three periods, each shot in a different format. Wozniak, who advised on the production, said after a rough cut that it felt like watching Jobs and the others, not actors playing them. For an actor playing a real person, that’s about as good a review as it gets.

   It first screened publicly at the Telluride Film Festival on September 5, 2015. Critics praised it, Fassbender especially. Audiences were another story: after a strong limited opening it expanded to more than 2,400 theatres and made only $7.3 million that weekend, against predictions of $15 million to $20 million, and after three weeks of wide release it was pulled from 2,072 theatres. Apple’s Tim Cook publicly called biographical projects about Jobs “opportunistic”; Sorkin responded sharply and later apologized.

   Vancouver in 2015

   Back home, B.C.’s screen industry was gathering speed. Creative BC counted 297 productions and $1.9 billion in production spending in fiscal 2015/16, before records of $2.6 billion in 2016/17 and $3.4 billion in 2017/18. That spring, Ryan Reynolds’s Deadpool closed the Georgia Viaduct for two weeks, one sign of the big American features coming to the city.

   Hollywood in 2015

   Steve Jobs shows the limits of prestige in the 2015 market. A Sorkin script, a celebrated cast and strong reviews filled upscale theatres in major cities, including the San Francisco Bay Area. Everywhere else, it struggled.

   Rogen in 2015

   Rogen was 33 at Telluride. Playing a real person in a Sorkin ensemble, opposite Fassbender, was a clear step outside the comedies he had written and directed with Goldberg. Off screen, he had taken on public advocacy. On February 26, 2014, he testified before a U.S. Senate appropriations subcommittee on the cost of Alzheimer’s disease, describing his mother-in-law’s early-onset diagnosis in her 50s. He and Miller had founded Hilarity for Charity, which has held benefits since 2012 to raise money for Alzheimer’s research and support families living with the disease.

   Why it matters

   Steve Jobs showed that directors could cast Rogen for drama. The box office shrugged, but the door was open, and The Fabelmans opened it wider seven years later.

7. This Is the End (2013)

   2013 · Directed by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg · Directing debut

   The apocalypse arrives, and a crowd of famous comic actors is trapped at James Franco’s house. Rogen and Goldberg’s debut as directors, which they also wrote and produced, expands their 2007 short Jay and Seth Versus the Apocalypse, starring Jay Baruchel and Rogen and directed by Jason Stone. Set in a fictionalized Los Angeles, it was shot mostly in New Orleans in 2012, on a budget CBS News put at about $32 million; one reviewer put the move down to cost. The end of the world, it turns out, is cheaper in Louisiana.

   Vancouver in 2013

   In Rogen’s hometown, 2013 was the year the film industry went into politics. A campaign called Save B.C. Film made production tax credits a provincial election issue, arguing that B.C.’s 33 per cent credit on labour costs was not enough against the 25 per cent credits on all production spending in Ontario and Quebec. It didn’t work: the Liberal government that won said additional credits were not necessary.

   Hollywood in 2013

   Rogen and Goldberg became directors the way they had become screenwriters: by building a film around themselves and their friends. A comedy about famous actors playing up their own self-absorption was a pointed joke for an industry built on persona.

   Rogen in 2013

   Rogen turned 31 in April 2013. He and Goldberg had already co-written Superbad, Pineapple Express and The Green Hornet; now they were directors too.

   Why it matters

   This Is the End is where a friendship that began at a Vancouver bar mitzvah class became a directing team. On screen, they were imagining the end of the world. At home, their province was arguing about how to keep its film industry.

8. Long Shot (2019)

   2019 · Directed by Jonathan Levine · Fred Flarsky

   She’s the U.S. Secretary of State. He’s a journalist reconnecting with his former babysitter. Long Shot, a political romantic comedy written by Dan Sterling and Liz Hannah, runs on that contrast. Charlize Theron and Rogen play the pair, and both produced. Jonathan Levine, who had directed Rogen in 50/50, directed.

   It premiered at South by Southwest on March 9, 2019, before a sold-out audience at the 1,270-seat Paramount Theatre, where Boyz II Men, who appear in the film, performed. Lionsgate released it in May. Critics praised the leads’ chemistry, but the film grossed about $53.9 million worldwide against a reported $40 million budget.

   Montreal and Vancouver in 2019

   Long Shot was a Canadian shoot, just not a Vancouver one: Narcity lists it among films made in Montreal, with its leads filmed in the Old Port on rue Saint-Paul. Rogen’s own Canadian business launched that spring: on March 27, 2019, he, Goldberg and a third co-founder, Michael Mohr, launched Houseplant, a cannabis company working with Canopy Growth, about five months after Canada legalized recreational cannabis. Comedians know timing. Its first product was scheduled to go on sale in British Columbia in early April. B.C., meanwhile, set a production record of $4.1 billion in 2019, Playback reported.

   Hollywood in 2019

   An original adult comedy, launched the festival way before a wide spring release. Its reviews were stronger than its box office.

   Rogen in 2019

   Rogen turned 37 in April 2019: a producer as well as a lead, and back with the director of 50/50 eight years later.

   Why it matters

   Long Shot is Rogen’s most conventional romantic lead on this list and one of two films here he made with Levine. Shot in Montreal, it’s a reminder that Canadian production isn’t only a Vancouver story, even when the star is a Vancouver kid.

9. Observe and Report (2009)

   2009 · Written and directed by Jody Hill · Ronnie Barnhardt

   Ronnie Barnhardt is head of security at the fictional Forest Ridge Mall. He’s determined to catch a flasher, and he wants to join the police. Jody Hill drew on Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy, and Ronnie has been compared to Travis Bickle. It’s an abrasive, uncomfortable lead, well outside the friendly persona of Rogen’s hits.

   Reviews were divided, and much of the debate centred on a sexual-consent scene that many critics read as depicting date rape. The film grossed a reported $27 million against an $18 million budget. Quentin Tarantino publicly championed it in 2009, and later writing has treated it as an overlooked film with a cult following.

   Vancouver in 2009

   Observe and Report was shot in Albuquerque, at the vacant Winrock Mall, which the city’s film liaison said was easier to work in than an active mall. Shoppers rarely improve a take. Back in Vancouver, big American features were up and local production down: B.C. Film Commission figures reported by the Georgia Straight showed foreign spending rising to $1.09 billion, helped by films such as The Twilight Saga: New Moon, while domestic feature films fell to 19 productions and $31 million, down from more than $80 million a year in 2007 and 2008.

   Hollywood in 2009

   Observe and Report had the bad luck of arriving second. Paul Blart: Mall Cop, another comedy about a mall security guard, reached theatres first and was a commercial hit. Same job, much darker film, and Hill’s suffered by comparison.

   Rogen in 2009

   Rogen turned 27 in April 2009. After Knocked Up, Superbad and Pineapple Express, this was a sharp turn, putting his stardom behind a character the audience isn’t invited to like.

   Why it matters

   Observe and Report is the film on this list that most directly tests Rogen’s audience, and its reputation has grown since its divided release. Some films win their audience on opening weekend. This one had to wait for its defenders.

10. The Disaster Artist (2017)

    2017 · Directed by James Franco · Sandy Schklair

    A well-made film about a famously bad one. James Franco directed and stars as Tommy Wiseau, the filmmaker behind The Room (2003), widely considered one of the worst films ever made. Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber adapted the 2013 non-fiction book by Greg Sestero and Tom Bissell about Sestero’s friendship with Wiseau and the troubled production; Dave Franco plays Sestero. Rogen plays Sandy Schklair, The Room’s script supervisor and de facto first assistant director, and is one of its producers, alongside Franco and Goldberg. Reviews were positive, with particular praise for Franco’s performance, the humour and the screenplay.

    A work-in-progress cut premiered at South by Southwest on March 12, 2017; A24 acquired it and released it in limited theatres on December 1. It won the Golden Shell at the San Sebastián International Film Festival, the first American film to do so since A Thousand Years of Good Prayers in 2007. At the 75th Golden Globe Awards, Franco won best actor in a comedy or musical, and the screenplay was nominated for best adapted screenplay at the 90th Academy Awards. Made on a reported budget of $10 million, it grossed about $29.8 million.

    Vancouver in 2017

    Back home, the industry was booming. Creative BC counted 452 productions and $3.4 billion in B.C. production spending in fiscal 2017/18, the second record year in a row, with international television series accounting for $1.9 billion. The following July, Rogen and Goldberg were named to Canada’s Walk of Fame, and the Georgia Straight introduced them as “Vancouver-born Hollywood comedy kingpins.”

    Hollywood in 2017

    The film took a familiar path for an awards hopeful from outside the studio system: a festival work-in-progress screening, acquisition by an independent distributor and a December release. It paid off.

    Rogen in 2017

    Rogen turned 35 in April 2017. Here he was both supporting actor and producer, part of the producing work he and Goldberg had built alongside their writing.

    Why it matters

    The Disaster Artist is a film about a notoriously bad movie, made by people who love movies. Rogen’s part, the professional on a chaotic set, mirrors his own role behind the camera as a producer. Every dreamer needs someone holding the clipboard.

What the ten films add up to

Vancouver gave this career three things: the partnership, the material and, once, the location. Rogen met Goldberg in the city at 12. Superbad began as their script about Point Grey Secondary, with real classmates’ names. And 50/50, a friend’s cancer story, was shot on Vancouver streets standing in for Seattle. Their production company is still named after a Vancouver high school.

The laugh is where it started, not where it stopped. Rogen went from the comic lead of Knocked Up and the co-writer’s supporting turn in Superbad to the abrasive Ronnie of Observe and Report, then to dramatic supporting work for Danny Boyle and Steven Spielberg. In 2018 Canada’s Walk of Fame inducted him and Goldberg together, and that’s the right way to see the career: two Vancouver friends who started writing as teenagers and kept going.

← Back to Vancouver & Festivals