Judd Apatow Reveals His Rejected Idea for ‘Superbad 2’

Judd Apatow has shared his proposed—and ultimately rejected—plot for Superbad 2.

Apatow co-produced the 2007 teen comedy starring Jonah Hill and Michael Cera as co-dependent best friends who believe they’ve wasted their high school years. As graduation approaches, the friends decide to have a night of debauchery and agree to get booze for a party hosted by one of their crushes played by Emma Stone; however, their plans are marred by a number of wild and hilarious setbacks.

“I always wanted them to do a sequel to Superbad,” Apatow said during a recent episode of the Inside of You podcast with Michael Rosenbaum. “I know that Jonah [Hill] said ‘Oh it’ll be funny to do it when we’re 70 or 80,’ but I really wanted them to do a Superbad in college where Jonah flunks out of college and just shows up and visits Michael Cera at college.”

As the film quickly approaches its 15th anniversary, fans have called on the Superbad team to develop a sequel. Though some of its stars have been seemingly open to the idea, Apatow claims they’re simply not interested, as they don’t want to mess with a good thing.

“Everyone was like ‘Nah we don’t want to screw up Superbad by accidentally making a crappy second one,’” he explained. “And I would always say the same thing: ‘Well that’s like saying don’t make the second episode of the of The Sopranos. Like, so why do you think we would screw up the second one?’”

You can hear Apatow’s Superbad 2 comments in the video above (1:19:00 mark).

The R-rated comedy was by Greg Mottola, and co-written by Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen, who also stars in the film. During a 202 interview with LadBible, Rogen explained why he would “100 percent probably never touch” a Superbad sequel.

“Honestly, I don’t think it requires improvement or anything to be built upon it,” he said. “I’m unbelievably proud of it, it really holds up – people still watch it, high school kids come up to me telling me that they watched it for the first time and how they loved it. It’s worked its way into being viewed as one of the better high school movies that’s out there.”

Cera made similar comments while speaking to Esquire earlier this year.

“I mean, I would be open to just doing anything with that group of people,” when asked about Superbad 2. “I think that everybody is pretty staunchly against this, just because we feel good about the movie. It could only tarnish something that is a good memory. That said, I would just love to do something with the same group of people, even if it’s not Superbad.”