Roughly ten years ago, Christopher Miller and Phil Lord co-created the cartoon “Clone High” with Bill (“Scrubs”) Lawrence, starting their professional careers in comedy that led to a stint as writer-producers on “How I Met Your Mother” and then the Sony Animation hit Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.
If you’re a fan of any of the above, then you already know how funny these guys are and what great comedy timing they have, even if it did come as a surprise to many to see them jumping into the director’s chairs for 21 Jump Street, an R-rated action-comedy version of the popular show from the ’80s and ’90s pairing Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum as incompetent police rookies who are forced to go undercover in high school to take on a drug ring.
ComingSoon.net spoke with the duo for “Cloudy” a couple of years back, and we had so much fun–as one might expect, ’cause they’re really funny guys–we wanted to share that experience by doing this interview on video. Here’s what we discussed:
* How they ended up doing an R-rated live action comedy after “Cloudy”
* Why they had no interest in doing a PG-13 version of the movie
* How they developed the script by Jonah Hill and Michael Bacall
* How the casting came together in terms of Channing and Ice Cube
* Getting the N.W.A. song for the soundtrack
* What they brought from the animated world to directing live action
* How improvisation played into the comedy
* How they knew Jonah and Channing would work as a comedy duo
* The movie’s sequel potential
* Some talk about the LEGO movie and “Cloudy” sequel, which you may have already read about here.
And more!
