Nicholas Stoller May Direct Seth Rogen And Zac Efron In Townies

Zac Efron in Neighbors screenshot
(Image credit: Universal Pictures)

While Nicholas Stoller has long ties with Judd Apatow and his gang - he was a writer on the Apatow television series Undeclared - for the most part Stoller has stuck to working with Jason Segel. The two have written together on multiple occasions, for movies like The Muppets, and have worked together multiple times as director and actor, namely for Forgetting Sarah Marshall and The Five-Year Engagement. Now, however, Stoller is planning on working with a different member of the Apatow gang as it looks like his next directorial effort will star Seth Rogen.

THR has learned that Stoller is now in talks to direct the comedy Townies, which already has Rogen and Zac Efron set to star. The pitch was picked up by Universal last summer and the script was written by Andrew Cohen and Brendan O'Brien. The film will feature Rogen as an ordinary family man whose life gets worse and worse when he is forced to deal with an "alpha-male fraternity house" on a regular basis. Soon enough the man finds himself going head-to-head with the fraternity's leader (Efron). Rogen and his writing partner, Evan Goldberg. are serving as producers on the movie while James Weaver, Cohen and O'Brien executive producing. Rogen, of course, was one of the stars of Undeclared, on which Stoller served as a writer.

I do find it a bit odd that Rogen is landing roles as the "regular family man" even though he's only 30, but the plot of Townies does sound pretty funny. Stoller is a really solid comedy director, but it will be interesting to see him work for the first time from a script that isn't his.

Eric Eisenberg
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