Production began in Los Angeles this week on an untitled musical comedy feature that will star the Lonely Island trio of Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone, Universal Pictures announced earlier today.
The Judd Apatow-produced movie will skewer musical documentaries like Justin Bieber: Never Say Never and One Direction: This Is Us, centering on a rapper (Samberg) whose latest album tanks, forcing him to reteam with his former boy band in order to stop his career from going down the tubes.
Of course, that there would be a satirical element to the Lonely Island’s movie, currently shooting as “Top Secret Untitled Lonely Island Movie,” is only to be expected, given that the group first came to international attention with irreverent Saturday Night Live videos like “Dick in a Box,” “I’m On A Boat” and “Lazy Sunday.”
Apatow unveiled the following poster today, further confirming the light-hearted tone:
Production began today (ok, yesterday) on the first film made by @thelonelyisland ! pic.twitter.com/Kww91Xn82E
— Judd Apatow (@JuddApatow) May 14, 2015
The Trainwreck director also released an official statement about the project, explaining:
“I have begged these fine gentlemen to allow me to produce one of their films since day one, and finally they decided my whining needed to come to an end.”
Schaffer and Taccone are co-directing the film, as they did previously in MacGruber and Hot Rod, which should be another exciting bit of news to entice the trio’s fans. Given how surprisingly well the Lonely Island has held up all these years, expectations are high for their first Hollywood feature. The plot sounds somewhat predictable, but as long as it makes room for plenty of faux-badass antics from the three, that’s completely fine by me.
We’ll keep you posted with more, including a title, as we get it.
