Funny People

Funny People
Pinar Saritas
Directed by	Judd Apatow
Written by	Judd Apatow
Produced by	Judd Apatow Clayton Townsend Barry Mendel Seth Rogen Evan Goldberg Jack Giarraputo Regan Losits
Starring	Adam Sandler Seth Rogen Leslie Mann Jonah Hill Jason Schwartzman Eric Bana
Cinematography	Janusz Kamiński
Edited by	Craig Alpert Brent White
Music by	Michael Andrews Jason Schwartzman
Production companies	Relativity Media Apatow Productions Mr. Madison 23 Productions
Distributed by	Universal Pictures Columbia Pictures
Release date	July 31, 2009 (2009-07-31)
Running time	146 minutes
Country	Template:Film US
Language	English
Budget	$75 million
Box office	$71,585,235

Funny People is a 2009 American comedy-drama film written, co-produced and directed by Judd Apatow, and starring Adam Sandler, Seth Rogen, and Leslie Mann. The film was released on 31 July 2009 in North America, and on 28 August 2009 in the United Kingdom. Funny People implements more dramatic elements than seen in Apatow's previous films. The film was co-produced by Apatow Productions and Mr. Madison 23 Productions, a subsidiary of Sandler's company Happy Madison. Universal Pictures and Columbia Pictures co-financed the film and it also served as a worldwide distributor.

Plot

George Simmons (Adam Sandler) is a rich-but-lonely comic movie star in his forties. One day, he is diagnosed with a rare and deadly form of cancer. Knowing he will die soon, he decides to return to his roots and do stand-up comedy.

Ira Wright (Seth Rogen) is an aspiring stand-up comedian who dreams of quitting his day job. George and Ira meet by chance at a comedy club, which leads to Ira getting hired by the older, more successful comedian as a joke writer and assistant. Their strange relationship deepens, with Ira acting as part best friend and part man-servant to George as the two travel around doing stand-up, and living together in George's mansion.

George contacts his ex-fiance Laura (Leslie Mann) to apologize for cheating on her when they were together. Laura tells George that her husband Clarke (Eric Bana) cheats on her. She regrets leaving George, and they end up reconciling.

George learns that his cancer is gone and is now forced to plan on living. George and Ira visit Laura at her large home in Marin County where the romance between George and Laura grows despite the presence of Ira, as well as Laura and Clarke's two young daughters. Eventually, Clarke returns home, when he learns about George and Laura's affair and the two, along with Ira, fight. Laura chooses to keep her family intact, rejecting George, who then lashes out at Ira and fires him.

Ira returns to his old job and normal life. George makes a surprise visit and offers Ira advice on his comedy, which suggests the possibility of a new stage in their friendship.

Cast

Leslie Mann, Adam Sandler and Judd Apatow in Berlin (2009)

• Adam Sandler as George Simmons
• Seth Rogen as Ira Wright
• Leslie Mann as Laura
• Jonah Hill as Leo Koenig
• Aubrey Plaza as Daisy Danby
• Jason Schwartzman as Mark Taylor Jackson
• Eric Bana as Clarke
• RZA as Chuck
• Maude Apatow as Mable
• Iris Apatow as Ingrid
• Aziz Ansari as Randy
• Torsten Voges as Dr. Lars
• Allan Wasserman as Dr. Stevens

Dave Attell, Sarah Silverman, Norm MacDonald, Paul Reiser, Tom Anderson, Charles Fleischer, George Wallace, and Andy Dick made cameo appearances as themselves in the roles of George's fellow comedians. Rapper Eminem, comedian Ray Romano, musician James Taylor, MADtv member Nicole Parker, and newcomer Bo Burnham also appeared in small roles. Undeclared alum Carla Gallo had a cameo in the film as a character on Yo Teach!, the television show within the film that Mark stars in, while Justin Long and Apatow regular Ken Jeong have cameos in the film as characters in movies for which George is famous. Owen Wilson and Elizabeth Banks are featured on posters for fake movies in which George starred. Bryan Batt makes an appearance as George's agent. Musicians Jon Brion, Sebastian Steinberg, and James Gadson appear in the film as members of George's jam band. Comedians Rod Man, Budd Friedman, Monty Hoffman, Mark Schiff, Orny Adams, Al Lubel, and Jerry Minor appear as themselves. Comedienne/producer/writer Carol Leifer appears as herself.

Production

Judd Apatow had expressed his desire to make a stand-up comedian mentor film loosely based on his own early experiences as a struggling performer. He could not come up with an interesting idea since most of his mentors were kind to him. He then thought of making a film about a mentor facing a life crisis, and decided to have his former roommate Adam Sandler play that role. They discussed making the film almost two years prior to production.

Apatow had cast Sandler, Seth Rogen, and Leslie Mann as the three leads in March 2008. Eric Bana, Jonah Hill, and Jason Schwartzman were cast in June 2008 when the title of the film was announced. When asked about the decision to cast Bana, Apatow said that both he and Rogen are fans of his films, Rogen additionally commented they cast him as the husband because he was someone who would be considered an intimidating presence to both Sandler and Rogen. Bana mentioned that he decided to make his character an Australian so he could improvise more.

Academy Award-winning cinematographer Janusz Kamiński handled the cinematography for the film. Apatow had Sandler, Rogen, and Hill, who all played stand-ups in the film, write their own material for routines. Apatow filmed them performing their routines in front of live audiences, using six cameras to capture their performances and audience reactions. Apatow filmed their entire performances, although only five to ten minutes of stand-up footage appear in the film. Hill admitted his performance was not well-received because he has never done stand-up. Additionally, Apatow filmed scenes from Sandler's character's fictional filmography, as well as scenes from Schwartzman's character's fictional television show Yo Teach!, for the film to add realism.

Apatow used an old video of Sandler, from when the two were roommates, in which Sandler makes prank phone calls, and features a young Ben Stiller.

Marketing

The first teaser poster for the film was released November 13, 2008. On the day the teaser poster was released, Universal Pictures and MySpace partnered together to create a contest that would allow people to have a part in the film by just writing a comment explaining why. Additionally, Apatow held a stand-up comedy concert event called "A Night of Funny People" at the Orpheum Theater in Los Angeles to film a scene for the movie. The event was open to the general public and featured acts by Adam Sandler, Seth Rogen, Aziz Ansari, Sarah Silverman, David Spade, and Patton Oswalt, with Sandler, Rogen, and Ansari performing as their characters in the film. The first theatrical trailer for the film was released February 20, 2009 on the Internet, with a shortened version first appearing in theaters with I Love You, Man.

A website for a fictional television show-within-a-film was created on NBC.com. The sitcom, Yo Teach!, "stars" the film's egocentric character Mark Taylor Jackson (Jason Schwartzman), who is a C-list actor portraying a young teacher with a class of failing students, and includes a cameo by internet celebrity Bo Burnham.

A website for Aziz Ansari's character Randy Springs was created, along with a documentary of the character on FunnyOrDie.com. The documentary was directed by Jason Woliner.

Comedy Central aired a special, "Inside Funny People" on July 20, documenting the making of the film and showing clips of the stand-up. The channel also aired "Funny People: Live" on Friday, July 24, which is a live broadcast stand-up of Adam Sandler, Seth Rogen, and Jonah Hill as part of the film's promotion.

Release

Critical reception

Funny People received mixed to positive reviews from the critics and currently holds a 68% "Fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a 50% "Rotten" rating among Top Critics, based on the consensus that the film "features the requisite humor, as well as considerable emotional depth, resulting in Judd Apatow's most mature film to date." Another review aggregator, Metacritic, gave the film a metascore of 60 out of 100 under the "Mixed or Average Reviews" category, based on 35 reviews.

Jeffrey Wells from Hollywood Elsewhere received feedback from sources who had seen a test screening, with one source calling it "really funny, a really sweet movie, a lot of veracity...really a brilliant film", comparing it to the works of James L. Brooks.

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times awarded the film 3½ stars of four, calling it "a real movie. That means carefully written dialogue and carefully placed supporting performances — and it's about something. It could have easily been a formula film...but George Simmons learns and changes during his ordeal, and we empathize." Peter Travers of Rolling Stone also praised the film, writing, "Apatow scores by crafting the film equivalent of a stand-up routine that encompasses the joy, pain, anger, loneliness and aching doubt that go into making an audience laugh." Kyle Smith of the New York Post wrote that the film was "one of the most absorbing films of the year."

Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune gave the film one of its mixed reviews, complaining of the film's two-and-a-half-hour running time: "Funny People is...an attempt by Apatow to reconcile the huge success he has become with the up-and-comer he once was. The results run an increasingly exasperating 2½ hours."

Box office

Funny People was commercially released on July 31, 2009 in the United States and Canada. It was distributed to 3,008 theaters, and grossed $8.63 million on its opening day. At the end of its opening weekend, the film had grossed $23.44 million. Funny People, which cost an estimated $75 million to produce, made about $71 million worldwide in theatres. In comparison, Apatow's previous directorial effort, Knocked Up, cost $33 million to produce and made over $219 million in gross receipts, while Sandler's last three movies had all made over 100 million dollars.

Home media

Funny People was released on DVD and Blu-ray in the USA on November 24, 2009. There is a one-disc "Unrated & Theatrical" cut and a two-disc "Unrated Edition". The Unrated cut of the film runs at 153 minutes, 8 minutes longer than the original theatrical cut. It was released in the United Kingdom on January 18, 2010, again, on DVD and Blu-Ray.

Soundtrack

Untitled

Funny People: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack was released on July 28, 2009.

1. "Great Day" by Paul McCartney (2:08)
2. "Wires" by Coconut Records (2:26)
3. "All the King's Horses" by Robert Plant and the Strange Sensation (4:19)
4. "Carolina In My Mind (Live)" by James Taylor (4:58)
5. "Keep Me In Your Heart" by Warren Zevon (3:27)
6. "Real Love" by Adam Sandler (4:56)
7. "We (Early Take)" by Neil Diamond (4:11)
8. "Jesus, Etc. (Live Summer '08)" by Wilco feat. Andrew Bird (4:01)
9. "George Simmons Soon Will Be Gone" by Adam Sandler (2:15)
10. "I Am Young" by Coconut Records (3:07)
11. "Memory" by Larry Goldings & Maude Apatow (3:53)
12. "Numb As A Statue" by Warren Zevon (4:07)
13. "Photograph" by Ringo Starr (3:58)
14. "Watching the Wheels (Acoustic Demo)" by John Lennon (3:06)

Bonus tracks on iTunes release

15. "Secret O' Life (Live)" by James Taylor (3:45)
16. "Photograph (Live)" by Adam Sandler (2:55)
17. "Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere" by Adam Sandler (4:02)
18. "Nighttiming" by Coconut Records (2:48)

The film also features "Joanna" by Kool & The Gang, "Three Little Birds" by Bob Marley, "Diamond Dave" by The Bird and the Bee, "Man in the Box" by Alice in Chains, "(I've Had) The Time of My Life" by Bill Medley & Jennifer Warnes, "Walk Like an Egyptian" by The Bangles, "In Private" by Paul McCartney, and "Give Me Love (Give Me Peace on Earth)" by George Harrison.

The Blu-ray and 2-Disc DVD also includes Adam Sandler performing The English Beat's "Save It for Later."

Additional songs used in the film's trailers are "We Will Become Silhouettes" by The Postal Service, "My Friend" by Dr. Dog, and "Nothing'severgonnastandinmyway (Again)" by Wilco.

External links

• Official Site
• Yahoo Fun
• Funny People at IMDb
• Funny People at Rotten Tomatoes
• Funny People at Metacritic
• Funny People at AllMovie
• Funny People at Box Office Mojo
• Template:Myspace
• Interview with director/writer Judd Apatow