First red-band trailer for Seth Rogen’s Sausage Party

Seth Rogen and his merry band of pot-smoking comedians are back – in animated form. The writer, actor and director has assembled something of a repertory group of comedians, appearing together in the likes of Pineapple Express to This Is The End, and now the cheekily-titled Sausage Party.

The first trailer for the film begins in a family-friendly manner, aping the likes of Dreamworks and Blue Sky Studios, before an abrupt and sweary about face. In this world, food is sentient and longs for kitchen salvation, before realising the uncomfortable truth that humans tend to eat food.

Rogen has written the script with his comedy partner Evan Goldberg, and Kyle Hunter. Dreamworks alumni Greg Tiernan and Conrad Vernon – who have family-friendly pedigree, including Thomas The Tank Engine reboot Thomas and Friends – are directing. The voice cast includes Rogen, Kristen Wiig, Jonah Hill, Michael Cera, James Franco, Nick Kroll, Paul Rudd, and Edward Norton, who voices a bagel.

A rough cut of the film was recently shown at the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas, but the finished sausage will be in your face, so to speak, from August 12.