Seth Rogen says Sony wouldn’t let Jonah Hill’s character in Superbad use a Playstation 2 because his character was “vile”

Seth Rogen recently spoke on his personal life-inspired comedy Superbad and if a movie like that could get made today. When inquired if comedy is harder to make in this day and age, the star responded, “The complaint that comedy’s harder than it used to be is not a valid complaint. Maybe it was too easy before. And why should it be? Why shouldn’t it be hard? I like that my job is hard, because I’m trying to do something that requires a huge amount of resources and people’s time and energy.” He added, “I’m constantly meeting teenagers who love Superbad and who think it holds up, and none of them are like: How f*cking dare you have said that?”

However, one group of people who had a problem with some of the humor was the very studio that was making it. Variety reports that Rogen revealed to Rotten Tomatoes that Sony had an interesting note on the film when they were making it — Jonah Hill couldn’t be seen using a Playstation 2 because they found his character to be vile. Rogen laughed,

They were like, ‘We can’t have him interact with our products as a character, because it’s too vile a character.’ And I was like, ‘It’s based on me, that’s very insulting.’”

Rogen continued, “Sony made the movie and we were told that Jonah Hill’s character, Seth, was so reprehensible to the studio. There’s a scene where they’re playing video games and it was like, ‘Jonah can’t touch a PlayStation.’” The Knocked Up star revealed that the production accommodated the studio and while Michael Cera’s character is seen early on playing the video game The Getaway: Black Monday on Playstation 2, Jonah Hill is not seen interacting with it.

When talk of a sequel was rampant, Rogen was against it and said, “I don’t think it requires improvement or anything to be built upon it. I’m unbelievably proud of it, it really holds up – people still watch it, high school kids come up to me telling me that they watched it for the first time and how they loved it. It’s worked its way into being viewed as one of the better high school movies that’s out there.” Meanwhile, producer Judd Apatow has been the biggest supporter of a sequel, once saying he would like to see Jonah Hill and Michael Cera’s characters head to college.