In Apatow news...

Variety notes that the usual Apatow gang appears to be on the right path.

In Disney's "Sorcerer's Apprentice," which hit theaters July 14, Jay Baruchel's young magician studies under a wizened vet to become a world-class conjurer. In his real-life career, Baruchel also studied under a mentor who showed the young thesp how to expand his skill set.
Baruchel, Jonah Hill, Jason Segel and Aziz Ansari are parlaying their success as regular actors in Judd Apatow films by branching out into new roles as writers and directors.

Segel is penning "The Greatest Muppet Movie Ever Made," Hill is rebooting the "21 Jump Street" TV series as a feature (writing producing and starring), while Baruchel and Ansari are each writing original projects.

But it's not just those guys; Apatow helped produce such pics as Seth Rogen's first two big writing gigs, "Pineapple Express" and "Superbad," as well as Segel's first writing job, "Forgetting Sarah Marshall."[...]


After working with Ansari on "Funny People," Apatow brainstormed with Ansari and his writing partner Jason Woliner on some ideas they'd been tossing around, including a spinoff of Ansari's character in the film, Randy.[...]

"It really helps having Judd support your project when you are pitching it to other people, especially when it is so hard to get somebody to listen to your original idea in the first place," Ansari says.

Acting in an Apatow film can get you attention, but having Apatow work with you on an idea will get studio execs to look at your script.

While Ansari enjoys having control over characters, deciding whether he will continue with his writing is still up in the air.

"You can wake me up at any time of day and tell me to pretend to be someone, and I'll be like, 'OK,'?" Ansari says. "Now wake me up and ask me to write a script, and it's not as easy."

Seth Rogen will be directing Jay and Seth Vs. The Apocalypse.

"Me and Evan [Goldberg] are writing it right now, actually, and it's come along way and it will probably be one of the next movies that we make, I would imagine," Rogen said.[...]

"It takes years to write a goods movie, that's what we've learned. We're finally going to script form. Once you're there, you're kind of on the home stretch. It means you have the key ideas to build the movie," he said.[...]

But the most exciting news that came out of the interview was not that the movie was almost finished being written, but that Rogen might be the one behind the camera filming it. "I think me and Evan might direct it, which might be a big step for us," he said.

"It's a great lesson in filmmaking, honestly, that we made the trailer for the movie and now we're getting to make the movie, which is really great," Rogen added.