Seth Rogen is on the publicity train now that his new movie, AN AMERICAN PICKLE, is hitting HBO Max (on August 6th – which is weird because there's been very little hype). While speaking to Howard Stern on his SiriusXM show, Rogen revealed that a sequel to his hit action-comedy THE PINEAPPLE EXPRESS was in the planning stages at Sony, but never saw the light of day due to a disagreement over the budget.
As he told Stern (excerpted by Variety), "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," adding, “It was something we were very open to several years ago, but Sony was not that interested in it.”
Here's where it gets interesting. If you look at the leaked emails from the infamous Sony hack, you'll discover that Rogen is telling the truth and a sequel to the film came very close to being made. It all came down to budgetary concerns, with the filmmakers wanting a $50 million budget, while the studio was only willing to give them $45 million. Note that the original film only cost $26 million, but made over $102 million worldwide, and almost certainly sold tons of units on DVD/Blu-ray. Too bad, as this would have for sure been a fun sequel, given that Rogen and co-star James Franco had such solid chemistry. Sadly, a sequel now seems unlikely for a myriad of reasons. Oh well, at least we have this faux trailer they made during THIS IS THE END.