Seth Rogen sparked some conversation when he declared that no one has made a good high school movie since 2007’s Superbad.
Rogen told People that The Fabelmans co-star Gabriel LaBelle spoke highly of the comedy Seth wrote with longtime friend and collaborator Evan Goldberg, despite LaBelle being only four years old at the time of its theatrical release.
“What’s crazy is that Gabe LaBelle is like, 19 years old and his and his friends’ favorite movie is Superbad,” Rogen said. Then—“joking,” per the magazine—he added, “So it never changed for some reason. No one’s made a good high school movie since then.”
His remark left people wondering if Rogen is, in fact, correct. A strong case could be made for Olivia Wilde’s directorial debut Booksmart, which currently has a score of 96 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. Superbad star Emma Stone also starred in Easy A, which, at the very least, reinvigorated interest in Natasha Bedingfield’s “Pocketful of Sunshine.” It’s also worth mentioning The Edge of Seventeen and Dope. All of these films were set in high school, and it seems a majority of people agree that they are good. If Rogen was genuinely throwing down the gauntlet, he might have said there hasn’t been a high school movie as good as Superbad since its release.
Superbad producer Judd Apatow revealed during the Inside of You podcast with Michael Rosenbaum last year that he wanted to make a sequel, but they ultimately decided against ruining a good thing. “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,” Apatow said.
“Everyone was like ‘Nah we don’t want to screw up Superbad by accidentally making a crappy second one,’” he continued. “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?’”
