The Pineapple Express

[MacGuffin]

Columbia plucks 'Pineapple'
Rogen, Franco to topline 'Express'
Source: Variety

Columbia Pictures is climbing aboard "The Pineapple Express," enlisting David Gordon Green to helm the laffer to star Seth Rogen and James Franco. Judd Apatow and Shauna Robertson will produce.

Script by Rogen and Evan Goldberg follows a pair of toking buddies who get mixed up with a drug gang. Production is slated to start early next year.

Rogen and Goldberg are also exec producing.

Project is something of a departure for Green, whose helming credits to date have been indie dramas, including "Undertow" for United Artists and "All the Real Girls" for Sony Pictures Classics. Green most recently wrapped "Snow Angels," an adaptation of Stewart O'Nan's novel starring Kate Beckinsale and Sam Rockwell, and he's attached to direct "A Confederacy of Dunces," with Will Ferrell attached to star.

"This project is an opportunity to plant an absurd buddy comedy in a rough-and-tumble action movie," Green said. "I've always been a sucker for the genre and hungry to fire up a comedy where characters don't get lost in their own concept."

Rogen, whose previous credits include "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" and "Anchorman," recently wrapped Col high school comedy "Super Bad" and last summer lensed Universal parenting laffer "Knocked Up," both produced by Apatow.

Franco, who will continue his villain role in "Spider-Man 3," most recently starred in "Annapolis" for Disney, MGM's "Flyboys" and 20th Century Fox's "Tristan & Isolde."

[modage]

wow, now THIS i'm very interested in.  DGG doing a script he didn't write, starring/written/produced by Freaks & Geeks.

[grand theft sparrow]

Yeah, if he lenses this laffer, it could be boffo!

[MacGuffin]

Heard has 'Pineapple' in pipeline
Source: Hollywood Reporter

Amber Heard has a ticket for "The Pineapple Express," the Columbia Pictures comedy starring Seth Rogen and James Franco.

The story follows two toking pals (Rogen, Franco) who get mixed up with a drug gang. Heard will play Rogen's girlfriend who makes him promise to give up the wacky tobacky. She later discovers he lied to her.

David Gordon Green is directing, while Judd Apatow and Shauna Robertson produce.

Heard, who appeared as the young Charlize Theron in "North Country," next stars in Kevin Williamson's CW series "Hidden Palms," which premieres May 30. She also stars as the title character in "All the Boys Love Mandy Lane," a horror movie from the Weinstein Co.

[Pubrick]

Heard ... next stars in Kevin Williamson's CW series "Hidden Palms," which premieres May 30.

i bet there'll be many a hidden palm making an appearance that nite.

[matt35mm]

Rosie Perez said on David Letterman that she plays a badass cop in The Pineapple Express.

[MacGuffin]

Pineapple Express Set Visit!
Source: Coming Soon

If you don't know who Seth Rogen is, you should. Not only was he one of the breakout stars in Judd Apatow's critically-acclaimed "Freaks and Geeks," but you saw him giving advice to Steve Carell on how to get laid in The 40-Year-Old Virgin and, in one of the most memorable scenes, ripping co-star and friend Paul Rudd about how he knows he's gay.

Rogen just finished his latest film, Columbia Pictures' Pineapple Express, which reunites him up with former "Freaks and Geeks" pal James Franco. The comedy focuses on drug dealer Saul (Franco) and his buyer Dale (Rogen) who are forced to go on the run after Dale witnesses a murder. In the film, Rogen is a process server and a major pothead. He buys his weed from Franco's character because he is the only one who has this new pot called "Pineapple Express." Saul wants to be actual friends with Dale, but Dale isn't really interested. He just wants to buy his pot.

After hearing the David Gordon Green-directed film was about to wrap, ComingSoon.net couldn't pass up the opportunity to hang out on the set the last night of shooting in Downey, California and watch the guys in action.

We walked into the house around 8 p.m. where the scene was about to be shot. Rogen, dressed in a tan suit with a blue shirt, and Franco, sporting long, straggling hair, a T-shirt and red striped Guatemala pants, were chilling out waiting to be called.

Kim Langlie, the film's publicist, explained the plot a little more and described the scene we were about to watch.

"He [Dale] goes to serve this guy named Ted. He's sitting in his car taking a couple of hits and a cop car drives behind him. The female cops runs from her car into the house that he's about to serve. The house is all windows and you can see everything inside. He's freaking out a little bit thinking he's busted for smoking pot. Then he watches through the windows and sees this white man and the cop he just saw, who is played by Rosie Perez, shoot this Asian guy in the head."

Langlie continued: "He's freaking out. He throws his doobie out the window. He takes off and goes to Saul's house. He says, 'Oh my God, I just saw this guy and this cop shoot this Asian guy.' They're trying to figure it out because they're thinking he might be the dealer. The big dealer. There's two dealers who bring stuff into Los Angeles. Sure enough they hear the car go back and forth so Ted and the cop go downstairs and find the smoking doobie. Ted picks it up and takes a whiff. He goes, 'Pineapple Express.' So he knows where he can find the guy who saw the murder."

Not only does Dale drag Saul into the situation, but Angie, his high school girlfriend, does as well. Two thugs, who Ted sent after the guys, are chasing them and he's worried they will find her too. The scene takes place at Angie's house and Dale runs over to warn her that she's in danger. He has Saul wait outside, but when he sees the thugs have found them, he charges inside and Angie stabs him in the back with a fork not knowing he's with Dale.

"Pull it out," Saul yells in agony.

As Dale yanks the fork out he shouts, "He's my drug dealer. Gross. Apply pressure to the wound. Why did you do that?"

"I'm Saul," he says as he's leaning against the kitchen counter for support.

Just as Dale's pressing a towel on Saul's shoulder, Angie's dad busts into the kitchen with a gun shooting at them.

Saul screams "Oh s**t."

"He's with me," Dale says as he grabs Saul, drags him to the ground and hunkers down on the floor trying to keep from getting shot.

Two gunshots go off and the guys are screaming for her dad to stop and are trying quickly to explain what's going on.

"Put the gun down," Dale begs.

"You assh**es do exactly as I say or I'll take you both outside and f**k you in the street," Angie's dad threatens as he stands over them with a gun.

"No," Saul pleads.

"Don't f**k us anywhere," Dale says freaking out.

"They're out there right now. They're coming in," Saul says, trying to convince Angie and her family that everyone was in jeopardy.

"Dale shouts, "It's super real."

"You've got to listen to us now," Saul whines.

"It's terribly real," Dale screams.

Everyone on set could not stop laughing at how comical the scene was and how brilliant Rogen and Franco were at improv. After every take, the cast would run over and watch the scene on the monitors and just crack up.

During one of the takes I asked Rogen if he made up the line "Don't f**k us anywhere" on the spot and he said "yeah." I laughed and told him it's my new favorite line.

But, it wasn't just Rogen who was great at improvisation. Franco held his own and came up with a few great quotes as well.

The guys were game to try anything in the scene and at one point; Rogen pushed Franco too far down on the counter and accidentally shoved his face in a plate of cupcakes. With frosting on his face, Franco kept going and didn't think twice about the mishap.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Pineapple Express Set Visit: David Gordon Green
Source: Coming Soon

Indie director David Gordon Green isn't known for making comedies, but when he met Seth Rogen and the two really hit if off, everyone thought it would be interesting to see Green come onto Pineapple Express. Green talked to ComingSoon.net in his trailer on the set about what the transition from drama to comedy and his experience of working on a bigger studio film has been like. After talking with Green for a few minutes, it's easy to see why Rogen wanted him to direct his latest flick. He's funny.

David Gordon Green: Those are underwear that a guy wore, a g-string, in the movie that I just finished before this and the producer thought it would be a fun gag for them to stage them in my trailer today.

ComingSoon.net: Especially today of all days!
Green: Those belonged to Nicky Katt and I would never touch them. I would stay a mile away from those drawers.

CS: What is the project you just finished?
Green: It is a movie called "Snow Angels" it was up in Nova Scotia, a heavy drama, so I decided to come down here to the warmth and the comedic terrain.

CS: How did you get involved in this?
Green: I just met these guys and they were working on "Knocked Up" at the time and I started hanging out on that set a little bit and I don't know, they seemed like a good group of folks and they work in a very similar manner in studio comedies that I do and low budget dramas and in terms of style and the way we got to work with actors and stuff like that. We just thought it would be an interesting experiment to see what happened if we took some of my team and some of their team and tried to make a movie together.

CS: After "All the Real Girls" and "Snow Angels" what's it like doing an all out action-comedy?
Green: Honestly it is a ton of fun. The easy answer is it is a lot of fun. I needed, just for my head, after investing some serious level of passion and emotion in four movies, four dramatic movies, I just felt that it wouldn't come from a healthy place to do another dramatic movie until I kind of, you know, exercised other muscles. You know, you don't want to just do curls everyday, you want to every now and then go for a jog, otherwise you start getting weird, you know. Just trying to even it out, because there is nothing worse than a terrible drama that comes from an artificial place or that to me, my least favorite movies are really bad dramas. A bad comedy you can just have a drink or whatever and watch a little bit of it and have a snack and zone out on it, but a bad drama is just bad.

CS: Are all your movies this collaborative?
Green: Yeah. They always have been. On this team there are probably 15 guys on this crew that I went to college with. Same DP that's done every movie I've done since film school, same sound mixer, the guy doing the behind the scenes documentary I've known for the past 10 years so you surround yourself with enough people you trust and have a relationship with and you are able to adapt to the learning curve that a production like this requires and then you surround yourself with people who have been doing these movies for 20, 30 years. You've got enough wisdom and experience to balance out our somewhat naïve enthusiasm. So if you bring both of those it meets in this pretty amazing creative place that I think we're a breath of fresh air in terms of some of the guys who have been working in the genre a lot more frequently and have more expertise certainly, but we're not just punching buttons we are trying to reinvent it, we're trying to do different things and in a way a lot of these guys we're going to, even some of the older guys that we go to, we want this to play like a lot of the '80s action comedies that I grew up on. You know like Blues Brothers, one of my favorite movies and one of the big influences for something like this where it is so outrageous but it never turns quite into a cartoon, so bringing guys who had been working in the '80s on action movies, on comedies was one of the things we were looking for on resumes, which is kinda cool... stunt coordinators and special effects guys and bringing that sensibility to it because it is kind of a timeless movie, you know people who play Ataris on flat screen TVs, that's kind of what our world is here.

CS: What's it like working with a guy like Seth who is about to blow up it seems?
Green: I was telling someone earlier, it is a perfect time to be working with Seth and James because they are guys who have a fan base but they can still walk down the street and live everyday lives like normal people, but they're on the brink with "Spider-Man 3" coming out and certainly people are more and more able to recognize these guys and over the next few weeks when "Knocked Up" comes out it is going to shoot that guy's star through the roof. So this is the perfect time because you get the excitement and the enthusiasm and all the talent of a guy that you don't bring the burden and the baggage of expectation to so we are still inventing him, he's still inventing himself. He's introducing himself to an audience because nobody really knows what to expect. At this point we're starting to latch on to who Will Ferrell is, we are pretty damn sure what we are going to get when we buy a ticket to an Adam Sandler movie. But Seth's at a great groundbreaking point where he can say "I want to do this and then I want to do something totally different over here" and mix it up. I don't think he's looking to do Shakespeare but he's looking to have a good time and do different kinds of movies and every time somebody was like, "well we might not have the budget to do that explosion," he's like, "I want to do this movie, because we get to do a big explosion so let's find the money and make it bigger." We got a couple of extra days for the car chase sequence, otherwise they were trying to give us the comedy car chase sequence and we wanted the action movie car chase sequence. So it is cool getting a guy that people are wanting to invest in right now, but again without any of the baggage. So you don't have people banging down his trailer and he doesn't have an entourage. He's just a good guy who is young and hungry and having fun and at a really amazing moment in his career.

CS: I noticed online there is a lot of buzz about you doing a comedy. Do you feel some pressure from your fans and what they might expect from this?
Green: I don't know. I think all the films I've made have had a degree of humor in them and I just felt somewhat monitored by the fact that to a degree there is a line you don't want to cross in a dramatic movie and still be faithful and considerate of the characters and respectful of the material. Again, bringing so much of the same manner and sensibility, you know we are doing a little bit different lighting in this movie because you light differently for comedies. It is a totally different tone and it is ridiculous and over-animated sometimes. I always divide people, people love one movie and hate the next. Hate all of them, love all of them so for me personally it is valuable to do something totally different and if it sucks or I'm not happy with it or audiences don't respond it might be difficult to do it again or I might not be interested in doing it again, but right now I think the funnest thing to do would be the unexpected.

CS: Seth was telling us a little about your directing techniques. Can you tell us a little bit about your style and does it differ from when you are directing a drama?
Green: The great thing about this entire ensemble is they bring wonderful improvisational skills to the table so you won't see me looking through a script on set. If a scene works... we want to make sure we hit certain beats and I'll have the script supervisor say "This is an emotional point we might want to nail" but we are so unspecific about it, so that's kind of how I do all of my movies. Here you are searching for a laugh, you are searching for what makes it a little bit different. I think it is a similar bag of tricks and tools, just trying to do things that are outrageous and throw people curve balls because what I try to avoid is people who are so rehearsed and prepared and performances that are so designed and scenes that are so story boarded and kind of prefabricated that it just feels manufactured. So I just try to make it feel loose and imperfect, because imperfect to me is a lot more interesting.

CS: So you are ok with them just going and riffing on each other?
Green: I don't know who was there for the last take where... you know the scene is done and just let them see what comes out because you might just find a button there that you can cut to for the last beat. So the whole thing is pretty much in that manner. Yesterday we had one set up and I said let's get Craig and Kevin, who were two kind of side characters, and got this lighting set up, there were going to be some wardrobe changes for the other characters before they would be ready and just bring them in and improv a scene and see what happens if Kevin is eating coos coos here and Craig wants to get him out of there. What happens there when you film them and shout stuff off camera to them, see if they throw a line. If I've got an idea I'll give it to them and say "say this" and then they will take that as a cue and go off on some tangent. This is the first time I've ever really had the value of basically infinite film stock. That's the cheapest part of this movie is burning film and you want to capture all those little moments because that's what makes this interesting. All the movies that Judd and the producers are really supportive of in finding an enormous commercial following is being able to have those kind of loose and ridiculous actors that riff and improvise and shoot it like this, which is not so stylized and composed as how I might approach a drama, but performance wise it is some of that same energy.

CS: How involved has Judd been? Has he been on the set a lot?
Green: Yeah, he comes by a bit. He's got like three movies going right now. He's juggling a lot. I have a lot of questions for him and I learn a lot from him and as far as having a producer who is supportive of what you are doing I couldn't be in a better situation for making a studio transition. Everyone including myself look to him for answers. The studio says how do we make good movies, how do we make people laugh and how do we get people to buy the DVDs? They look to him because of his track record the last few years. I look to him to see how I might approach something a little more economically in terms of not wasting time and getting right to the joke without it feeling like a set up and a pay off. How do you write a comedy when you are balancing, you know we have some pretty brutal violence, but you know I want to make sure it doesn't feel cartoony. So there is a lot of value in his experience there. There is always some degree of some political and financial, not battles but issues that your dealing with and trying to balance and iron out because you only have so much money and so much time and he's just got a lot of experience on various scenarios and budget levels so it is great to have a big brother for sure.

CS: Speaking of violence are you guys looking at a PG-13 or an R?
Green: I don't think there is any way around a pretty hard R.

CS: Good to hear.
Green: Yeah, there is some pretty graphic gore.

CS: Oh, fantastic.
Green: There is unstoppable language and pretty substantial drug use.

CS: Oh, thank God! We need more hard R.
Green: I agree too, because again going back to the '80s and things when movies really could push the envelope a little bit and those are the movies we look back to in terms of comedy because they were less fleeting. Kids today are still watching "Caddyshack" and "Meatballs" ...

CS: "Animal House."
Green: Yeah, they just live longer. I'm trying to make something that doesn't feel like it is so contemporary that it is out of style by the time it comes out. It is different too because I didn't write this movie which is a breath of fresh air in a way and Seth and Evan being the writers and producers that are unpossessive of the words. I had one impression of it when I read it and another impression when we started talking about it and sculpting it and now the actors who are there are the characters. I don't feel any authorship to it so I get to surrender it to the actors a lot more so they really do take it in some outrageous directions.

CS: How much stoner exclusive humor is there here?
Green: I don't think any of it is exclusive because I'm not a big pothead and I can't stop laughing at these guys, so trying to make something that is not so genre specific that would only appeal to Cheech and Chong fans. I did my homework and watched a lot of the stoner movies of the last decade and I don't think any of them are particularly funny and I even tried getting high for a couple of them and it still didn't (laughs)... so it has got to work on different levels. This is a movie that hopefully 17-37 year olds will really sink their teeth into and be able to identify with some of the situations. There is enough fart jokes to keep the kids happy, but I think it is pretty subversive and interesting sense of humor that they are bringing layers to it that it is not too ... well you know we are shooting so much that who knows what will be in the editing room. I'm getting assemblies all the time and I'm watching sequences, but we already have three hours of movie edited and it could go in a lot of different directions and that is another situation I'm unfamiliar with is what happens when you start test screening it? I want to make a movie that the crowd likes, because you don't make this for yourself. That's why I'd go make "Snow Angels 2" or whatever, you make this to have a bunch of college kids rolling in the aisles and when it is not funny, it is not funny. It is not like "well, I think it is funny and I'm going to keep it and fight for it" if nobody is laughing you look like an idiot. You know what I mean? So that will be a fun learning experience there. Then the MPAA, it's like are we allowed to have 13-year-olds smoking weed in movies?

CS: This will probably be your first huge DVD too, right?
Green: Yeah, we're actually having a whole day where we are having the actors back on Tuesday to do some crazy things that we've designed and we have some guest actors coming in to do cameo appearances and some stuff – it will totally be freestyle improv stuff. Behind the scenes documentary that the guys there, Darius he's here all the time everyday catching every bruise and chuckle. It is good to have that kind of a document I think. It would be great if an audience turns out for the movie. I've never had the pleasure of having a commercially received movie. This seems as primed for that as I've been a part of. The other good thing that would be funny is that "Snow Angels", my last movie, is probably going to come out in '08 – I would love nothing more than within a month to have this really bleak heavy winter drama and this totally ridiculous far out stoner comedy – just to give you guys something to write about (laughs). I've also woven in some minor subtle links between them too, so we'll see, they are for totally different audiences, but we'll see. It's all a great experiment and experience. So far there hasn't been any drastic drama. Everybody is on the same page. We are all just shooting a film and having a lot of fun and hopefully that translates to the audience in the same kind of way.

CS: This is your last night?
Green: Yeah, I've been shooting all night all this week and I can't sleep during the day time so I'm kind of a zombie right now. I'm glad we have that DVD day because otherwise it would be saying goodbye to all these people. You know, I made a ton of new friends on this movie, some days we have like 600 people working on the action scenes and set pieces so it has been huge and I would hate to be totally out of it on my salute away. It would be good to get a couple days, clear head come back and have a good fun loose day where everybody gets crazy and then part ways and maybe gather again for the sequel. You know what I want to do that will never happen, but would be amazing is to do a sequel to "Tango and Cash" and "Pineapple Express" at the same time so you'd get, I like the idea of combining sequels like "Alien" and "Predator" or whatever. Bringing two franchises into the same sequel would be pretty cool. I like the idea of taking the director of another franchise and he directs his actors and I direct mine ... doing something weird. Try something different. We'll see what's next.

[modage]

AICN visits the set of The Pineapple Express...
http://www.aintitcool.com/node/32812

JoBlo visits the set of The Pineapple Express...
http://www.joblo.com/set-pinneapple-express

[Redlum]

Wow. Seth Rogen looks a lot like a young John Goodman there.

This and Knocked Up are sending me on a wave of Freaks and Geeks nostalgia.

[JG]

is that eliza dushku?

[MacGuffin]

Apatow's 'Express' set for '08
Film co-written by 'Knocked Up' star Rogen
Source: Variety

Summer seems to be Seth Rogen's season.

Sony has slated next summer to launch the Rogen topliner "Pineapple Express" -- which "Knocked Up" helmer Judd Apatow produced -- on the heels of a successful summer launch for Universal of the latest Rogen-Apatow tag-team "Knocked Up" last weekend.

Sony brass said Tuesday that it has pegged August 8, 2008, to bow "Pineapple," the stoner comedy co-penned by Rogen with Evan Goldberg.

That August date would tentatively pit "Pineapple" against the second frame of U's "Hellboy 2" and directly against New Line's Brendan Fraser pic "Journey 3-D," according to movie data service Rentrak.

"Pineapple" centers on a delinquent duo of dudes on the run from gangsters after one inadvertently witnesses a drug-related murder.

Pic - helmed by indie darling David Gordon Green ("All the Real Girls") -- also stars James Franco, along with Danny McBride, Gary Cole and Rosie Perez.

Modestly budgeted laffer "Knocked" opened last weekend to No. 2 behind "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End" by taking in more than $30.6 million.

[MacGuffin]

Are 'Pineapple' Pair Seth Rogen, James Franco The Next Harold & Kumar?
'Knocked Up' funnyman, 'Spidey' baddie team up for stoner comedy/ action flick 'Pineapple Express.'
Source: MTV

CULVER CITY, California — At first glance, schlubby "Knocked Up" comedian Seth Rogen and overemoting "Spider-Man 3" actor James Franco might not seem like an obvious team. But with two of the summer's biggest hits under their belts, everybody is talking about them these days — which is fortunate, since they can't talk about "The Pineapple Express."

"I don't know if I can say what it really means," Rogen explained recently, punctuating the statement with his now-famous staccato laugh. "Well, it's the name of a drug. It's the name of a type of pot that is the catalyst for the main story of the movie. It's the pot that gets us in trouble, I would say. This is a cautionary tale about the Pineapple Express."

"It's about the two guys who are least equipped to deal with any type of danger, and they are thrust into danger," said Franco, standing in the middle of a Sony Pictures soundstage wearing a long-hair wig. "I play a low-level pot dealer, and Seth plays my client. Because of some circumstances, we get into a lot of trouble."

Ask Franco about "Express," and he'll say flat-out, "It's a comedy." Ask Rogen, and he'll reply, "It's an action movie." And to make things even more confusing, it's being directed by one of the most acclaimed art-house filmmakers of the past decade.

"We knew the action would be cool — you just get a good stunt coordinator and a good [director of photography], and it's going to look cool no matter what," said Rogen, who also serves as co-writer and producer on the flick. "But we wanted to make sure that the story was really good, that the characters seemed real and that it was emotionally resonant at the same time. So we thought indie guru David Gordon Green would be able to inject all of that."

"After doing four relatively dramatic films, I thought it was an important thing for me to get a breath of fresh air, sit back and have a good time," Green explained. "But my process is pretty similar in both [comedies and dramas]. It's all about having a good time and getting a good group of people who work creatively and collaboratively."

Green, the visionary director behind such eye-popping low-budget epics as "George Washington" and "All the Real Girls," is the third wild card in the "Express" equation. On the set, as Franco tried to get into character, Rogen cracked jokes with a production assistant and Green meticulously choreographed the umpteenth take of a silly scene, one couldn't help but wonder: Who introduced these guys to each other?

"Judd Apatow," Franco said, dropping the magical name that fuels so many film productions these days. Apatow is serving as a producer on the flick and has contributed to the story as well. "He's done '40-Year-Old Virgin' and 'Knocked Up,' and the script [for 'Pineapple'] is pretty out-there. Then they hired David, who usually does very art-house films. So I think it's the perfect combination to make a funny movie, one that is somehow elevated above the rest of the stoner movies."

So imagine, if you will, Harold and Kumar caught up in the world of "Donnie Brasco." Cheech and Chong meeting Tony Montana in a back alley. Or ... sequels to barely remembered action flicks starring Bruce Willis and "Rowdy" Roddy Piper?

"Shane Black was a big inspiration to us," Rogen said of the script he co-wrote with "Knocked Up" co-producer Evan Goldberg. "He wrote the 'Lethal Weapon' movies and 'The Last Boy Scout.' I'm a big fan of his."

"We've used those as references a lot, but I've used John Carpenter's 'They Live' with Roddy Piper," Green revealed. "I've watched that a lot, in terms of the fights that feel like real people really getting hit. I've also looked to movies like 'The Blues Brothers' and 'The Big Lebowski' as movies that work within genre conventions but don't use the textbook in their engineering."

In the scene we witnessed, Rogen frantically abuses the downstairs buzzer to Franco's apartment, disturbing the stoner's half-conscious state. Getting up from his couch, Franco gazes lovingly at a hilariously over-the-top portrait of him and his grandma hanging above the TV, tends to the panicked voice on the other end and then starts returning to the couch. His foot-shuffling is interrupted, however, when Rogen maniacally buzzes again. "I missed the door!" he shouts.

"Me and James, we witness a murder and it sends us on the run from a drug dealer played by ['Office Space' actor] Gary Cole," Rogen said of the scene. "We're basically the two dumbest guys in the world trying to figure out how to outsmart these criminals and save our loved ones, and we become good friends in the process, which is nice."

In real life, Rogen has befriended the on-set medical crew, as he's learned that being an action star isn't as easy as it looks. "There are many fight scenes and car chases and AK-47s being shot throughout this movie," he said. "I broke a finger, and I got many, many bumps and bruises along the way. There are a lot of injuries, I would say, on this set."

"I got three stitches right in my head — I ran into a tree," Franco added. "They cut it down after."

"Franco cracked his head open our first week of shooting," Rogen teased. "We're not action people. Well, I'm not — Franco is. But I've done more physical activity making this movie than in the past 10 years."

"Everybody gets injured on action movies," explained Franco, getting ready for another take. "One of the best things about doing all the action on this thing was Seth's reaction. If a punch was thrown or a gun was fired, he was excited. But I think he soon realized that you get injured in action scenes, so he started tallying up all the injuries."

We'll see how this oddball mix comes together when "The Pineapple Express" hits theaters in August 2008, but this much seems certain: The heat coming off Franco, Rogen and Apatow virtually guarantees Green the biggest opening weekend he's ever had.

" 'Spider-Man 3' [made] film history by breaking the opening box-office-weekend record," Franco teased his director. "Do you think 'Pineapple' will beat that record?"

"I have a wonderful track record on the other end of that financial spectrum," Green replied.

[Pozer]

really wanna go see this tomorrow, but it's pretty far (woodland hills - so cal talk) and dont know if ill make it there in time.

[MacGuffin]

Four minute scene preview:

http://www.joblo.com/video/player.php?video=Pineapple-Express

[Redlum]

Disappointed to see Seth Rogen doing the stoner thing again. Maybe because I feel some resentment heading his way, like with Ben Stiller's shtick, and Jim Carey's rubber face. I don't want him to play a serial killer or anything it's just that this scene could have been a 'Ben Stone visiting his dealer', deleted scene from Knocked Up.


- The bizarre mish-mash of creativity behind this film has to form its own trifecta of film-making power.
- It seems to me like this films main influence is The Big Lebowski (not just because Rogen looks like John Goodman, still)
- Desario and Miller - together again!