Hear Me Out: ‘This Is The End’ marked the end of an era of comedy
When the Judd Apatow-produced TV show Freaks and Geeks aired in 1999, very few in the industry took much notice. The project got lost amongst the sea of content being put out at the time, failed to secure a big enough audience, and then was unceremoniously dumped by the network, which only aired 12 out of the 18 episodes. No one could have guessed that it would actually launch a new era of comedy, dominated by a handful of mostly men. But now, looking back ten years after the film’s release, it’s clear that This Is The End is the film which ended that era.
But first, here’s how the era began: when Freaks and Geeks was cancelled before it even finished its first series, it must have looked like the burgeoning careers of the cast – including James Franco, Seth Rogen and Jason Segel – had been cancelled along with it. For Apatow, however, furious at the network for lacking faith in his vision and disillusioned with the attitude of the industry he was working in, it served only to encourage his own convictions that comedy needed a drastic overhaul. Rogen, meanwhile, was sitting on a screenplay he’d written with co-writing partner Evan Goldberg. Entitled Superbad, it featured two high-schoolers whose ambition is to lose their virginity before they graduate, which takes them on a freewheeling adventure across the city.
Cut to several years later, Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy and Apatow’s directorial debut, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, are now two years old, having been released in 2004 and 2005 to critical and commercial success. Rogen’s face has been introduced to mainstream audiences with both films and Jonah Hill with the latter. With enough clout behind their names, Apatow was able to revive Rogen’s Superbad script and secure backing from Columbia and Sony in 2007 to produce the multi-million dollar picture. With Hill in the lead and newcomer Michael Cera co-starring, the movie was expected to be a modest comedy hit. What Superbad actually did, however, was cause a monumental shockwave throughout popular culture and prove beyond any reasonable doubt that Apatow and his comedic cohort were the reigning champions of the comedy scene.
For the next five or so years, a certain group of comic actors and producers completely dominated the industry. The year after Superbad, Pineapple Express was released, and James Franco was brought back into the fold to star alongside Rogen. It was yet again a smash hit, and it became clear that a pattern was forming; all of the talent that had been wasted on Freaks and Geeks had made the ultimate come-back, lying dormant for several years only to return with a vengeance. As Apatow himself said, “Everything I’ve done, in a way, is revenge for the people who cancelled Freaks and Geeks“.
Nearly every major comedy that came out during this period included Rogen, Hill, Franco, Segel, Cera and Danny McBride, with Apatow always lurking somewhere in the background. A distinct brand of comedy films had been forged; predominantly male, stoner-orientated, fusing both grounded and real-life scenarios like getting fired or dumped with a grand, fantastical and dramatic element. Films like Knocked Up, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Get Him to the Greek, The Green Hornet and Your Highness filled theatre screens nearly every year. Then came 2013’s This Is The End.
It wasn’t that this ambitious, apocalyptic comedy, with Rogen and Evan Goldberg in their directorial debuts, was a flop. Not even close, it packed theatre screens and racked up over $120million at the box office. Creatively, however, it marked the end of that specific collaboration of actors, writers and producers, and whilst there were still a handful of films that came out after, like The Interview, the latter half of the 2010s saw films like this more or less fizzle out. In retrospect, it represents the last dying breath of a Hollywood monster that once ruled supreme.
There could be several reasons for this. The first one is simply demographics maturing and markets shifting. The appetite for big, brash comedy was huge, whereas now it seems the superhero genre is what’s in demand. Another reason, however, may be that the very scale and sense of ambition that This Is The End demanded ended up exhausting every last trick the filmmakers had in their book. A semi-satirical depiction of the apocalypse, the film has the entire gang, playing themselves, taking refuge in Franco’s Hollywood mansion as the world around them erupts into hellfire and demons are unleashed on those not fit for rapture, particularly Jonah Hill.
The result is very funny, if somewhat dated like a lot of these films are, but the main takeaway is how painfully self-aware it is. Each actor takes a self-deprecating shot at themselves, then at each other, in a faux-humble attempt to bring them down to the viewer’s level. They mock each other for being part of the Hollywood elite whilst undoubtedly reaping the rewards of a multi-million dollar Hollywood film. Actors like Channing Tatum appear for the most minuscule of ridiculous cameos, and even Emma Watson makes a brief appearance.
The film is so star-studded, so smugly self-referential, and just so damned big in terms of its concept that it begs the question; where could it all go from here? It almost feels like an unofficial swansong, one big final blow-out, with the Armageddon acting as a thinly veiled metaphor for the combustion of the whole comedy scene. After holding court for nearly a decade, the filmmakers pushed past the point of no return, and for better or for worse, the comedy landscape hasn’t been the same since.
