It's been over a decade since audiences watched Jim Levenstein (Jason Biggs) awkwardly deflower baked goods in the original American Pie. At the time, the movie stood out as a throwback to the raunchy teen comedies of the '80s, before the R-rated comedy became the go-to genre for summer flicks that didn't have the budget for explosions or transforming robots. Those of us who were around the same age as the Pie characters at the time have since gone on to grow up, get jobs, get married, maybe have some kids. Now, eight years after the last "official" sequel, American Wedding -- not counting the various marginally related direct-to-DVD spin-offs -- Jim, Stifler, Finch, and the rest are getting back together for another signpost of maturity: the high school reunion. It's a situation that's inherently rife with nostalgia, and Universal Pictures is playing that angle up hard with the latest poster for the movie.
MTV debuted the new American Reunion poster today, and if it looks a little familiar, the side-by-side comparison reveals why: it's a recreation of the original American Pie poster (that's the new one on the right).
It's interesting to see the posters next to each other, to see how the actors have changed over a decade, and to see the little changes they've worked in -- Michelle's (Alyson Hannigan) sex-aid flute has been replaced by a less scandalous baby bottle, for instance. I also can't help but wonder who ate the piece of pie with the hole in it. It was also nice of them to put the logo there so they had something to prop Tara Reid up against.
Want to play a fun game? Take a look at the original poster, try to cast your mind back to 1999, and then remember which of the cast members you thought would become stars and which wouldn't. Then check the cast's names on IMDb and TMZ to see how things actually played out. There's a drinking game in there if only I could get my time-machine prototype up and running.
American Reunion is set to open on April 6th, 2012 with the entire main cast from the original American Pie returning.
