While speaking with Howard Stern on his SiriusXM show to promote his upcoming HBO Max film An American Pickle, comedic actor Seth Rogen confirmed leaked Sony Pictures emails that the reason a sequel to Pineapple Express ultimately wasn’t made was over a dispute over the film’s budget.
ROGEN: “We tried to make one and thanks to the Sony hack you can actually find the email when Sony decided to kill the movie and not make it. It was something we were very open to several years ago, but Sony was not that interested in it.”
I think we probably wanted too much money.
Pineapple Express was a bit of a financial hit for Sony as the film ended up earning $101.6 million on a budget of $27 million alongside profits from the home video market with at least $47.9 million.
However, leaked emails from the Sony hack revealed that they were looking to get $50 million for the sequel, almost double the original’s budget. Sony wanted more of a budget in the realm of $40-45 million, the expectation the higher budget would go to salaries since Rogen admits to Stern people weren’t really paid much on the original film despite the film being a success for Sony Pictures.
The Sony hack was directly connected to Seth Rogen’s North Korean assassination comedy The Interview, which the North Korean government didn’t take too kindly and led to international death threats on the actor.
It’ll be interesting to see if the sequel could find new life in the world of streaming, that’s if Seth and Evan Goldberg wanted to return to it in the future.
PINEAPPLE EXPRESS – Stoner Dale Denton’s (Seth Rogen) enjoyment of a rare strain of marijuana may prove fatal when he drops his roach in a panic after witnessing a murder. Upon learning that the fancy weed can be traced back to them, Dale and his dealer (James Franco) go on the lam, with a dangerous drug lord (Gary Cole) and crooked cop (Rosie Perez) hot on their heels.
SOURCE: THE HOWARD STERN SHOW
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