With box office receipts totalling $223 million worldwide, Neighbors is Seth Rogen’s biggest hit to date, so it should come as no surprise that the 31-year-old Vancouver native and producer pal Evan Goldberg are pondering the idea of making a sequel.
“We are having a lot of discussions,” Rogen said at a conference at the Warner Bros. lot on Saturday.
But before the star gets around to Neighbors 2, he has another project that he hopes to bring to the big screen first: Jazz Cops, a comedy in which he and Kevin Hart will play undercover cops attempting to infiltrate a group of jazz musicians in the 1950s.
Rogen also revealed that the budget of Neighbors was not the $35 million that had been widely reported, but rather $18 million. He said the movie was initially budgeted at $35 million, but when the studio started interfering, he decided to slash the budget in half in order maintain artistic control. “At least we didn’t make a movie we hate and had to work on for a year and a half,” he said.
His decision to slash the budget rather than deal with suggestions from the studio was partly influenced by his experience working on The Green Hornet, a film he said he did not enjoy making. “We learned not to make $200 million movies,” he said of the experience.
Rogen also revealed that unlike his Superbad co-star Jonah Hill, he has no intention of tackling more serious roles anytime soon. “It’s more fun working on stuff that makes me laugh all day,” he said.