It’s been two years since we first heard that Judd Apatow was producing a new film created by The Lonely Island, the trio of Saturday Night Live writers that combined comedy and music into some of the show’s best viral content in years. While little is known about the movie as a whole, we now have our first look at the film, in the form of a poster. This also gives us the film’s official title: Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping.
Needless to say, the title is perfect. Early reports were that the film was going to be taking aim at the musical concert/documentary film style, such as the recent Katy Perry: Part of Me or Justin Bieber’s Never Say Never. This subtitle, Never Stop Never Stopping, drives the idea to its logically absurd conclusion. Andy Samberg also looks perfect.
What’s great about the poster is that other than the title, there’s actually nothing overtly funny here. If you walked past this poster in the movie theater lobby and weren’t paying close attention, you’d likely think it was an ad for an actual concert film. We expect that there will be many people who aren’t directly familiar with the name Lonely Island and probably will believe this movie is legitimate.
Of course, even if you did think this movie was playing it straight, the poster is still ridiculous, and that’s part of the joke. Along with the poster we also have the official plot synopsis for Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping. It lines up with some of the early reports of what the film is about, but gives us a bit more detail as well.
The comedy goes behind the scenes as singer/rapper Conner4Real (Samberg) faces a crisis of popularity after his sophomore album flops, leaving his fans, sycophants and rivals all wondering what to do when he’s no longer the dopest star of all.
The original word was that the unnamed film would focus on a boy band, made up of the three members of The Lonely Island, Adam Samberg, Akiva Schaffer, and Jorma Taccone. Now, it sounds like idea is to only tell the story of a single pop singer, Samberg’s character, known as Conner4Real. While the other two members of the trio will have plenty of work to do as both co-writers and co-directors on the project, we’re sure they’ll find their way in front of the camera as well, even if they won’t be key characters.
The Lonely Island has always been good for four minutes of entertainment as part of a sketch comedy show, but time will tell if they can make the transition to feature films. Many have tried to translate Saturday Night Live success to the big screen, but not all have succeeded. Is Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping going to be a solid gold hit? What do you think? We'll find out for sure on June 3.
