It wouldn’t be unfair to say that Christopher Mintz-Plasse owes his entire career to Superbad‘s McLovin, with the actor going on to play variations on the same sort of nervous geek for the last fifteen years in the likes of Role Models, Year One, Kick-Ass, Neighbors and more. In fact, his most recent feature film appearance in Promising Young Woman played off his established screen persona, as he found himself in the sights of Carey Mulligan’s vengeful heroine.
The classic teen comedy remains as popular as ever having recently dominated Netflix’s Top 10 most-watched list after being added to the library, and it feels as though Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg’s film is going to be one of those timeless movies that gains an entirely new audience with each passing generation.
Rogen has explained previously why he’s got no interest in ever making a sequel, even though you can guarantee that Sony will have put out the feelers at least once to try and convince him otherwise, and in a recent interview, Mintz-Plasse revealed the only way he could envision a return to the world of Superbad ever happening.
“I’ve heard from some of the people who made the first one, and I don’t think they want to touch it. I think they kind of like where it’s sitting. And, sometimes if you make a sequel to things, it can kind of damper the first one. I think they just want to let it be. If there was a way to do a female version, would be the way, for sure.”
Comedy sequels arriving decades after the first installment is always a risky game to play, one that could ultimately end up harming the original in retrospect, while female-driven reboots always tend to divide opinion. Combining the two on something like Superbad feels completely unnecessary, and it would be a much better idea to let the raunchy high school romp continue to enjoy its surprising longevity as one of the 21st Century’s most enduringly popular and beloved R-rated studio comedies.
