Seth Rogan says he planned on making a sequel to Pineapple Express, but was turned down by Sony. Rogan discussed the potential film on SiriusXM’s “The Howard Stern Show," Wednesday.
“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,” he told Howard Stern. “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. Studios, they don’t like giving away money. Weird thing,” he said.
In 2014, Sony Pictures was hacked and an email from producer Judd Apatow showed the team's interest in a second film: “I am so glad we are so close to getting ‘Pineapple Express 2’ figured out. I am very excited to make this thing real. We are very inspired creatively on this one. We have hilarious ideas. It is gonna be awesome. We learned so much on how to make these comedy sequels when we did ‘Anchorman 2.’ And we rocked that marketing campaign. Foreign is doing awesome too. I am sure ‘PE2’ will do even better! Marijuana is so popular now! It’s on every corner!” Apatow wrote in an email.
The Daily Beast reported that Apatow sought a $50 million budget, but Sony set a cap at $45 million and a middle ground was never met.
[Via]