Seth Rogen recently shot down the idea of a potential revival for Judd Apatow’s cult classic high school sitcom Freaks and Geeks because, more or less, nobody can do it better so it might as well just stay the same. And he’s right! This should be the case for most things! If it’s good, why remake it with worse characters, or reboot it only for it to be canceled after one lackluster season? It’s bad for everyone involved.
Another popular Rogen-related project is Superbad, the infamous 2007 high school comedy that coined the popular Myspace-era phrase “McLovin,” in addition to launching the careers of Jonah Hill and Emma Stone. Even though it’s 15 years old, the movie still finds fans in modern audiences who enjoy the absurd comedy and its Hot Topic merch tie-ins.
Rogen recently revealed that one of his younger co-stars from The Fabelmans, Gabe LaBelle, still enjoys the movie, which was made when he was a toddler. “What’s crazy is that Gabe is like, 19 years old and his and his friends’ favorite movie is Superbad,” Rogen said, before joking, “So it never changed for some reason. No one’s made a good high school movie since then.”
Now, Seth Rogen is a good person who makes pottery and minds his business, and he was kidding around, so I won’t be mean, but there have been plenty of good high school movies since then, and a lot of them have centered on non-male characters. But he is right to imply that there shouldn’t be a Superbad reboot or revival because it wouldn’t be quite as good when it’s not the good old days of 2007, when iPhones didn’t exist and the economy was totally fine and normal. That’s why Ladybird takes place in 2002, anyway.
If it were to take place now, any Superbad remake would inevitably feature someone accidentally going live on TikTok, which would turn into a horror movie. It’s probably for the best that the original just stays on its own. Pineapple Express on the other hand could use an update.
