THE APOCALYPSE (In Development)

• THE APOCALYPSE

Actor-slash-writer-slash-producer Seth Rogen was at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) for the past week promoting two films he co-starred in, both which mix comedy with more drama we've seen from Rogen in the past: Sarah Polley's Take This Waltz and Jonathan Levine's 50/50.

It was for the latter that ComingSoon.net spoke with Rogen, and he confirmed to us that the horror-comedy project The Apocalypse, based on a fake trailer Rogen made with Jay Baruchel in 2007 called "Jay and Seth vs. the Apocalypse," is almost ready to go with Rogen planning to co-direct with long-time writing and producing partner Evan Goldberg.

"We're packaging the whole movie right now and we're getting the cast locked into place, which looks like it's finally happening, and we should start shooting in February," he told us during our interview slot.

Earlier in the week, he revealed to the Winnipeg Free Press some of that cast, as well as why the film will no longer be titled "Jay and Seth vs. the Apocalypse" as planned. Apparently, Rogen and Goldberg have secretly added a couple of familiar names to join Seth and Jay in fighting that Apocalypse, including two actors they've worked with quite a bit, Jonah Hill and James Franco.

Seth Rogen & Jay Baruchel

"It's all our friends, luckily, and we all play ourselves in the movie," he told them. "I literally play Seth Rogen in the movie and Jay Baruchel literally plays himself in the movie and others - Jonah Hill, James Franco - they're literally playing themselves in the movie."

"It's a movie about a bunch of friends who are stuck in a house together as the apocalypse happens outside and they kind of barricade themselves in," he elaborated on the film's main plot. "They think they've kind of survived the worst and then they realize they all really can't stand to be around each other as they're stuck in this house together."

Having made 50/50 relatively inexpensively by going the independent route, we asked whether that would continue with this project, to which he replied, "It has been tempting to approach things differently, honesty, and the Apocalypse movie has a slightly higher budget, but we are trying to approach the financing it from the a different way than we normally would to try and assure as much creative control as possible."