Seth Rogen doesn’t really do the stoner action-comedies like he used to, but maybe if there had been another hit of Pineapple Express, he would be. The 2008 film, a cult classic that earned over $100M on a $26M budget, seemed like an obvious choice for a sequel that would reunite Rogen with co-star James Franco. It never happened, and smoked-out fans everywhere now have a reason as to why. Turns out, it all boils down to money.
Rogen confirmed to Howard Stern the reason Pineapple Express 2 never got made is due to a budget disagreement between Sony and producer Judd Apatow…
“I think we probably wanted too much money. We made the first one, no one got paid anything, and that’s why it was like a $25 million movie. And that’s why it became highly, highly, highly profitable. Because it was made really cheaply, especially for an action movie. Studios are just – they don’t like giving away money. Weird thing!”
Rogen is right. There was so much fallout from the Sony email hack years ago that we forget one of the lesser reveals was a Pineapple Express 2 budget battle. Apatow wanted the sequel to have double the budget, and Sony largely agreed with him. The whole thing fell apart because the two sides couldn’t agree on a $5M difference. That’s it. The reason you don’t have Pineapple Express 2 is $5M. Think about that.
