FILM · 2007 · USA
Superbad
- Directed by
- Greg Mottola
- Runtime
- 113 min
- Studio
- Columbia Pictures, Apatow Productions
82 archived facts 7 topics 1 source Last reviewed Sep 2026
Two co-dependent high school seniors are forced to deal with separation anxiety after their plan to stage a booze-soaked party goes awry.
Summary: TMDB
56 Interesting Facts About Superbad
- #002
Writers Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg began this script when they were just thirteen years old because "we just wanted to see if we could write a movie."
- #003
This was Emma Stone's (Jules) first film.
- #004
Contains a major spoiler — show
The DVD/Blu-Ray menu featuring Evan's (Michael Cera) dancing silhouette was shot continuously for an hour, with Cera dancing the entire time without a break, to give the menu the feel of a scene with no loop.
- #005
Contains a major spoiler — show
The penis drawings in the film were made by Evan Goldberg's brother, David Goldberg. There were close to a thousand of them, but only a few appeared in the film and the end credits sequence.
- #008
Contains a major spoiler — show
As Seth and Fogell flee from the police through backyards, Seth Rogen's father appears as the father wielding a baseball bat.
- #010
Bill Hader (Officer Slater) stated that, because of his character's popularity, he was offered many roles as a police officer after this film.
- #011
The main characters Seth and Evan take their names from the writers Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg.
- #012
Contains a major spoiler — show
The word "fuck" is used one hundred and seventy-six times. The film itself is only one hundred and thirteen minutes long. That works out to an average of 1.6 uses of the word per minute (eighty-four of them are said by Seth (Jonah Hill) alone).
- #015
Seth Rogen thanks Jay Baruchel for being the first to suggest Michael Cera to them.
- #017
Contains a major spoiler — show
According to the DVD commentary, the night Evan (Michael Cera) describes to Becca early in the film is a "beat by beat" account of what Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg and their friend Sam Fogell did in high school.
- #018
Contains a major spoiler — show
The penis drawings, especially the scene in which young Becca holds up a picture of one of them, were a point of contention with the MPAA. Producer Judd Apatow said it was the subject of many legal arguments, including whether the veins could be shown and how erect they could be. However, the actress playing young Becca, Laura Marano, had a different picture she had to hold before the actual drawing was used. You can even see from behind that the drawing in her hand looks completely different.
- #019
At the beginning of the film, the 1970s version of the Columbia Pictures logo is shown instead of the 2000s version.
- #020
Contains a major spoiler — show
In a sketch made for the Special Edition DVD commentary, Judd Apatow was accompanied by his nine-year-old daughter. He asked that no one swear in front of her. Jonah Hill angered Apatow by swearing repeatedly. After an argument, Apatow left the commentary to sit next to his daughter.
- #022
Water was used for vodka, apple juice for hard liquor, and non-alcoholic beer for the party scenes.
- #024
Contains a major spoiler — show
Although Jonah Hill plays a high school student and Seth Rogen plays a police officer, Hill is only 2 years younger than Rogen.
- #025
Justin Long had a scene in the film that was cut due to its length.
- #026
The screenplay for this film was on the 2006 Black List, the list of the year's "most liked" unproduced screenplays.
- #027
Contains a major spoiler — show
At first Michael Cera "wasn't doing anything" and there were concerns about the character, and they wondered whether he needed more energy or needed to "read" on camera. "We had to get a thirty-foot screen for video village so we could see what he's doing." His subtle style of comedy soon made itself known.
- #028
Christopher Mintz-Plasse's first film.
- #029
Contains a major spoiler — show
When the two police officers ask McLovin where the party is, McLovin says: "13th and Granville." Granville Street is a busy street in Vancouver, British Columbia, where Rogen and Goldberg grew up.
- #032
When Dave Franco first appeared on set, they didn't know he was James Franco's brother. "We were just staring at him, what's wrong with this guy?"
- #033
Bill Hader based his character Officer Slater on a real police officer who had arrested him when he was young, and told Seth Rogen, "I got messed with by a cop with glasses," to which Rogen replied, "Oh yeah, that's, like, so lame. I can't take a cop with glasses seriously!" Hader's father had told him about a prank in which he and his friends would tie two trash cans together with fishing line and hang them over the road so that passing cars would get stuck. Hader and his friends tried the prank, but the car they pranked turned out to be a police car. Hader's friends ran away, but Hader stayed and tried to act calm. He was arrested, and the police commented on the Natural Light cans, "What, are y'all on a budget?"
- #035
Contains a major spoiler — show
The song "These Eyes," which Evan sings at the first house party, can later be heard on the radio in Officer Slater and Michaels's patrol car.
- #036
Contains a major spoiler — show
Film prints were sent to some theaters under the title "Separation Anxiety."
- #037
Contains a major spoiler — show
The soccer player who "pissed his pants" is played by Dave Franco, James Franco's brother.
- #038
Contains a major spoiler — show
The shirt Evan (Michael Cera) wears for most of the film was also worn in the Arrested Development (2003) episode "Flight of the Phoenix" (2013), in the role of George Michael.
- #039
Reunion: Six years after this film's premiere, Jonah Hill (Seth), Michael Cera (Evan) and Christopher Mintz-Plasse (Fogell) played themselves in a scene in This Is the End (2013). They are seen together at James Franco's house party. Seth Rogen (Officer Michaels) also appears as himself in the film.
- #040
Contains a major spoiler — show
For the end credits sequence, some of the unnamed characters were given "porn names" formed by combining the name of their pet with the street they grew up on.
- #041
Sony would not let Jonah Hill use a PlayStation in the film. Seth Rogen recalled: "They were like, 'We can't have a character interacting with our products, because he's too much of a lowlife character.' And I was like, 'This is based on me, this is very insulting.'" Michael Cera is instead seen playing on the system, specifically the game The Getaway: Black Monday (2004).
- #042
The advanced buzz was so strong that Judd Apatow was billed as "the producer of Superbad" in trailers for Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (2007) and Drillbit Taylor (2008), which were released earlier and/or attached to the film itself.
- #049
Contains a major spoiler — show
Jonah Hill (Seth) and Carla Gallo (dance partner) appeared together in five films. Along with this film, they also appeared in Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008), Get Him to the Greek (2010), The 40-Year-Old Virgin (2005) and Funny People (2009).
- #050
Contains a major spoiler — show
Christopher Mintz-Plasse was not of age during production, so McLovin's sex scene had to be shot in a very particular way so that nothing sexual happened between him and Aviva Baumann. The two seconds in which Aviva is on top of Chris were reviewed over and over by the studio to make sure there was no friction.
- #051
Contains a major spoiler — show
Bringing the dick-drawing scene to the screen required enormous legal hurdles. Every drawing had to be approved individually by the studio's legal department, and notes saying "too big, too veiny" were sent back. The image of the little girl holding the drawing (at the 19th minute) is actually the tiny hands of an adult woman.
- #052
Contains a major spoiler — show
(At 1 hour 19 minutes) Seth Rogen's father plays the man who throws the bat at Seth.
- #054
Jonah Hill and Dave Franco would later appear together again as "classmates" in 21 Jump Street (2012).
- #055
Contains a major spoiler — show
In the scene where Seth (Jonah Hill) and Evan (Michael Cera) wait for Fogell (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) to buy alcohol for the party, Seth says, "this plan's been fucked since Jump Street." Jonah Hill later starred in 21 Jump Street (2012) and 22 Jump Street (2014).
- #056
This was Roger Iwami's first and only role.
- #059
The mall scene at the end was shot at the Fox Hills Mall, now known as Westfield Culver City, in Culver City, CA.
- #060
Edgar Wright conducted a fake interview with Cera and Hill, which led to Jonah Hill's well-known (staged) outburst toward the end of the interview.
- #061
Seth Rogen (Officer Michaels) and Martin Starr (James Masselin) appear in this film and also appeared in Judd Apatow's series Freaks and Geeks (1999), which he also produced.
- #062
Jonah Hill (Seth) and Emma Stone (Jules) also worked together on Maniac (2018), as Owen Milgrim and Annie Landsberg respectively.
- #063
Seth Rogen, Bill Hader, Danny McBride, Joe Lo Truglio and Kevin Corrigan reunited in Pineapple Express (2008).
- #065
While talking with his friends, Fogell mentions that the name 'Muhammad' is the most used name on the planet. This fact is actually true; the name is common across any state and country worldwide.
- #067
Contains a major spoiler — show
The comic book 'The Goon', written by Eric Powell, can be seen in the background of Evan's room.
- #068
Erica Vittina Phillips's character is named Mindy, but she is referred to only as the Liquor Store Cashier.
- #069
Contains a major spoiler — show
The scene in which Evan (Michael Cera) is forced to sing 'These Eyes' at the adults' party strikingly resembles the scene in Dead Poets Society (1989) in which Knox (Josh Charles) attends a high school party. (1) Evan and Knox are both mistaken for the brother of someone they are not. (2) Drunk partygoers pressure both of them: Evan to sing and Knox to shoot a basket. (3) Both are outsiders at the parties. (4) After the cases of mistaken identity, both sides end up in a fistfight.
- #071
Seth Rogen's wife has a supporting role in the film; they married a few years after the film's successful release, but they had met years earlier when the story was still in draft form.
- #072
Michael Cera, Emma Stone, Christopher Mintz-Plasse and Jonah Hill all had ties to superheroes. Stone was Spider-Man's girlfriend, Hill voiced the Green Lantern in the Lego films, Mintz-Plasse played the villain Red Mist in the Kick A** films, and Cera voiced Robin in Lego Batman.
- #073
Viewers report cheering and applauding when Joe Lo Truglio appears on screen, and Seth Rogen compares this reaction to the one Alan Tudyk received when he appeared in Knocked Up (2007).
- #074
Fogell (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) is not introduced until roughly fifteen minutes into the film.
- #075
Becca's real name was Helen, and Jesse's (the spitter) name was Terry.
- #077
Seth Rogen (Officer Michaels), Carla Gallo (Period Blood Girl) and David Krumholtz (Benji Austin) all appeared in Undeclared (2001).
- #078
In the scene where Evan (Michael Cera) describes the Saturday night in detail to Becca (Martha MacIsaac), Fogell (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) wears a white T-shirt featuring an advertisement for Monty Python's "SPAMalot," a Broadway musical comedy adapted from Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975).
- #080
The mall's closing scenes are often confused with the earlier comedy Evolution (2001) — both were filmed at malls built to similar specifications but located in different parts of Los Angeles.
- #081
Despite being close collaborators with Seth Rogen, Jonah Hill and Jody Hill are not related.
- #082
The commentary was recorded in both New York and Los Angeles.
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