As they launch their joint directorial debut This Is The End this summer, writing / producing team Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg are on the hunt for other projects they can shepherd to the screen, even if they’re not quite so directly involved. Now Sony has just bought the rights to Simon Rich’s hilarious story **Sell Out **for them to handle.
Rich, a Saturday Night Live veteran who has been working at Pixar, published the novella in four chunks in the pages of the New Yorker. Sell Out finds a fictionalised version of the writer meeting his great-great grandfather Herschel, a pickle factory worker who was somehow preserved in brine after an accident and must now confront the modern world after his revival.
Specifically, Herschel’s baffled by Simon’s life as a script doctor in a Brooklyn filled with hipsters and other ideas that must seem weird to someone from a century ago. Part one is here, and we highly recommend taking the time to read all four sections. In Herschel's words, is fine. Warning: may cause uncontrollable giggling, so beware if you're in work.
Unlike This Is The End, Rogen isn’t currently planning to star in Sell Out, but the pair will produce the movie and may end up writing the script.
They’re also definitely involved in developing **The Interview, a comedy about a talk show host (James Franco, assuming he signs) and his producer (Rogen), who become embroiled in a plot to assassinate the North Korean prime minister. This Is The End, meanwhile, is set for release on June 28. We talked to Rogen and Goldberg at WonderCon and the trailer is below.