Details From Inside Judd Apatow's Funny People

By Josh Tyler: 2008-07-07 03:19:46

You’ve probably heard about Judd Apatow’s next project, a film about standup comics called Funny People, and starring Adam Sandler, Seth Rogen, Jonah Hill, Eric Bana, Jason Schwartzman, and Leslie Mann. What you probably haven’t heard is well… anything more than that. Till now everything about the movie has remained tightly under wraps. Tonight though we got our hands on a several pages of the script, which offer a few clues as to what Judd’s up to with this one.

The pages we have focus on a female character named Daisy and her relationship with a pair of roommates and standup comics named Ira and Marc. It’s seven pages, composed almost entirely of dialogue. Apparently Apatow doesn’t improvise everything his characters say on the set, as is sometimes assumed. He has plenty of talking planned. The tone is a lot more serious than any of his other work as well. Ira is in love with Daisy, Daisy is screwing Marc, and everyone seems to be making everyone else uncomfortable. Oh it’s certainly full of all the fuck jokes you’d expect, but it’s also a lot of relationship drama, in fact this thing almost reads like his attempt at a raunched-out, straight-up romance movie.

Here’s an exchange between Daisy and one of the movie’s other characters:

George: I know that Marc’s not good in bed. Don’t tell me he was a good lay. He can’t have a big dick. Look at Ira. He’s thick. He’s gotta have a thick dick.

Daisy: Actually, I have a really skinny vagina, so I’m not really into thick.

That’s the closest the script gets to a comedy bit, but it’s indicative of the sort of in your face, brutally honest language used throughout the pages we have in our hands. In that regard, it's about what you'd expect from an Apatow flick.

What’s really odd is that the characters all seem to behave as if they’re a bunch of immature frat boys, even though we know that the cast is primarily composed of quite a few thirty to forty-somethings like Adam Sandler and Eric Bana. Maybe that means the characters in these particular pages are the ones being played by younger actors like Seth Rogen and Jonah Hill. If so, expect them to spend a lot of the film screaming at each other. In fact everyone seems to be eternally upset, and where there’s screaming there’s cursing. The MPAA should have a lot of fun with this one.

While the relationship drama in these pages seems to happen around Hollywood (there’s a little bit of starfucking), this doesn’t really seem to be a movie about comedy as has been suggested by some. It reads like a romance movie (done up with all the filth you expect from Apatow), that just happens to involve a bunch of comedians. It’s been hinted at before, but it seems like Apatow really may be skewing a bit more towards the serious with this one.

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rob Says:
July 8th, 2008 at 17:18
Devin at Chud rips into this article with a fury. Yow.

JoshT Says:
July 8th, 2008 at 17:27
Devin has had an axe to grind against me for years. Most of what he says generally amounts to unsubstantiated, randomly accusatory slander. I'm sure this is no different. I don't plan on wasting any of my time with reading it. Neither should you.

Shawn Says:
July 8th, 2008 at 23:24
I disagree with Devins rants a lot (he likes to be loud) but his points here are pretty much spot on. Seven pages of ANY script is pretty much useless in getting any sense whatsoever of the whole movie. Plus the idea that heavily improvised movies don't have a full script written is silly.

JoshT Says:
July 9th, 2008 at 00:07
Shawn, I agree with you for the most part. I don't think you can get an impression of an entire movie from just seven pages of a script. That's why this isn't a script review, nor is it a review of the film. That's why at the outset, I made it very clear that I was simply conveying what I saw in ONLY 7 pages of the script, so that anyone reading this would understand rather clearly exactly what a limited view this is of what Apatow is up to with this film.

I'm glad you understood that's what you were reading here.

I also agree with you when you say "the idea that heavily improvised movies don't have a full script written is silly," even though I've often heard is suggested by some that is the case with Apatow flicks. That's why I said above, "Apatow doesn’t improvise everything his characters say on the set, as is sometimes assumed. He has plenty of talking planned."

Seems like we're mostly in agreement here sir. Welcome to CB.

Deadite Says:
July 9th, 2008 at 15:11
Yeah, Devin was too harsh. Kind of took some rhetorical stuff out of context/mis(under?)quoted.

Ravi_Davi Says:
July 10th, 2008 at 01:48
Josh, I'm not ready to roast you on this one but I do want to play devil's advocate for a brief moment. I know that you made mention of the fact that you only had seven pages at the beginning of the article and, for all intents and purposes, that's fine. I believe though that once you started reviewing the material that you had read, your comments came off as seeming like you were making generalized comments about the script as a whole. A little more clarification would probably have suited you better.

JoshT Says:
July 10th, 2008 at 01:51
Ravi:

Paragraph 1: "several pages"

Paragraph 2: "seven pages"

Paragraph 6: "the pages we have in our hands"

Paragraph 7: "in these particular pages"

Paragraph 8: "in these pages"

I mention it throughout the story over and over and over again. Short of starting every single sentence with "Seven pages" I'm not sure how I could possibly have clarified it any more.

Leo Polakowksi Says:
September 21st, 2008 at 14:30
Boring, really really boring. What a yawn. Just aswell you didn't right the script. Thank god for small mercies, indeed.

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Details From Inside Judd Apatow's Funny People

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