2022 marks the 15th anniversary of Superbad, the coming-of-age comedy that followed Jonah Hill’s Seth and Michael Cera’s Evan’s chaotic journey to buy alcohol for a party and lose their virginity before graduating from high school. Spoiler alert for those of you who haven’t seen the 2007 movie, but it ends with the two teens pairing with their respective love interests at the mall and going their separate ways. Originally though, Superbad had a much different ending that involved boobs and f-bombs, which sounds about right for this movie.
Writers Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg were among the Superbad cast members and other creative talent who spoke with Vanity Fair for an oral history going over the making of the movie. Rogen, who also starred as Officer Michaels opposite Bill Hader’s Officer Slater, recalled how Superbad was “inspired largely just by our desire to buy alcohol at the time,” and that while they had “a ton of house parties at our high school for whatever reason,” it was “always was a challenge to get booze.” Goldberg added:
Our original draft ended with them leaving the party, walking down the alleyway, and then Seth’s character makes fun of Michael Cera’s mother having nice breasts, and then he says, ‘Fuck you.’ That was the end.
Had Superbad ended on this explicit note instead, that would have taken us to roughly the 90% point of the final cut, as the only material left with the Seth and Evan characters by then was them going back to Evan’s house and then going to the mall the next day, where they run into Emma Stone’s Jules and Martha MacIsaac’s Becca. However, even ignoring the ending, the house scene is a pretty integral moment, as that’s where the friends reconcile and Evan tells Seth that he doesn’t actually want to be roommates with Christopher Mintz-Plasse’s Fogell, a.k.a. McLovin, at college, and it only doing so because he’s afraid to room with strangers.
Speaking of McLovin (who celebrated his “40th birthday” last year), it’s unclear from Evan Goldberg’s statement if we still would have seen him getting into one last round of shenanigans with officers Slater and Michaels (i.e. setting the police car on fire and shooting at the flaming wreckage) before getting this final moment with Hill’s Seth and Cera’s Evan. Regardless, no doubt landing on the movie’s ultimate ending contribute to the warm reception Superbad received. Opening on August 17, 2007, Superbad was met with a lot of positive reviews and made over $170 million at the worldwide box office. The movie played a big role in launching Jonah Hill, Michael Cera and Emma Stone to Hollywood stardom, although Cera was fairly well known at that point for Arrested Development. Although producer Judd Apatow came up with a story for Superbad 2, there’s been no progress with making it happen, especially since Hill would only want to do the sequel when he’s 80.
We’ll pass along any other interesting details about how Superbad came together as the 15th anniversary is celebrated. Those of you with your eyes looking to the future rather than the past should acquaint yourselves with our 2022 release schedule and 2023 release schedule.