Seth Rogen Plans To Follow In Jackie Chan’s Footsteps
Seth Rogen is planning his next movie with a heavy physical comedy element. He's modeling it off the work of Jackie Chan.
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Seth Rogen isn’t someone you’d ever accuse of being an action star. It’s mostly because he, well, isn’t. But it doesn’t mean he doesn’t strive to be in the genre and have some inklings about what might be funny when it comes to physical comedy. According to Movie Web, the actor and director has his sights on creating a totally different film than he’s done in the past. With it, he’s looking at some different inspiration. Apparently, Rogen is developing a movie in a way trying to emulate the work of Jackie Chan and Buster Keaton. We could be looking at a totally different type of flick coming down the pike the guy, one involving a lot more stunts.
This latest movie is apparently something that Seth Rogen has been working on for some time now. The film is tentatively titled Escape and according to Rogen will use almost all physical comedy to tell the story and mine the laughs. This is a bold undertaking considering we simply don’t see this type of film too much anymore. It could be because some folks think the type of humor to be sophomoric or “easy”. Or it could be because it’s so hard that only a few can actually pull it off. This is why Rogen refers specifically to guys like Chan and Keaton who were known much more, even predominantly, for what they did physically and not through dialogue.
Seth Rogen had a number of interesting quotes from a recent interview about their process for making Escape. It isn’t clear exactly what the film is about, but he did specify that he had to give the pitch more through a flipbook style of visuals rather than an actual script. In this way, it appears he’s committed to making a movie in which word descriptions simply won’t do the trick ahead of time.
And when Seth Rogen refers to Jackie Chan here, I think it’s important to make certain distinctions. It doesn’t appear he’s planning on making a martial arts movie with this next film. He was more referencing the idea that Chan is such an insanely gifted and talented physical actor that he was able to carry entire scenes for long takes without ever uttering a word and also without using any weapons. All of the physicality is highly choreographed, but also technical and funny. When all put together, the movies just work.
It’s not clear about the timing for this next Seth Rogen film with the idea of it only popping up recently. It’s clear they have been working on it for some time now, but it doesn’t mean it’s close to being greenlit. And Seth Rogen is plenty busy these days anyway. He has a laundry list of films in the pipeline he’s producing over the next few years. In terms of acting, he’s currently in pre-production on Santa, Inc in a voice role and then Pam & Tommy the miniseries based on the romance between Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee Jones. So it might be some time before we see Rogen get fully physical on screen.
