Superbad 2: Why the Sequel Will Never Be Made

Superbad 2: Why the Sequel Was Ruled Out by the People Who Made the First One

Status Dead

Since Superbad (2007)

19y

Ruled out by the people who would have to make it. Seth Rogen, who co-wrote the original, has said he is "so terrified of subtracting from it" that he would never do it. Jonah Hill has joked he would only make it in his eighties; Judd Apatow had a premise but no one else was interested.

Source: IndieWire / JoBlo (Rogen, Hill) · 2022-01 · Status last checked July 2026

Published June 17, 2026

The rare case where the answer is settled

Most negative answers in this tracker are soft: nothing announced, nothing cancelled, nobody saying anything. This one is firm, and it comes from the people with the most say.

Superbad was released in 2007, written by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, and it made stars of its young cast. A sequel has been asked about ever since. Rogen has been consistently and publicly against it, describing himself as too afraid of subtracting from the original to attempt a follow-up.

What the principals have said

The positions are unusually clear:

Seth Rogen, co-writer, opposed. His stated reason is protective rather than logistical: a bad sequel would damage something he is proud of.
Jonah Hill, interested only in a version where the cast are in their eighties, which he has described as the sole circumstance in which he would do it.
Judd Apatow, who produced the original and has said he had a story idea, with nobody else on board for it.

Read together, that is a project with a producer’s premise and no writers or leads. It is the inverse of the usual stalled entry, where everyone is willing and the money is not there.

Why the original resists continuation

The film works because of when it is set in its characters’ lives — the last days before people who have always been together stop being together. That is a one-time story by construction. A sequel either revisits the same night, which is impossible, or follows the characters into a period the film deliberately declined to show.

Hill’s joke about the eighty-year-old version is funnier than it first sounds, because it is the only structure that would restore the original’s premise: friends facing separation again, at the other end. It is also, by his own framing, not a real plan.

What would change this

Only the people involved changing their minds. There is no studio blocking it, no rights problem and no budget question, which is why the status here is dead rather than stalled, and likely to stay that way.

Questions about Superbad 2

Will there be a Superbad 2?

No. This is one of the few entries here marked dead, and unusually it was not killed by a studio: the original's own writers and cast have ruled it out. Seth Rogen, who co-wrote it, has said he is "so terrified of subtracting from it" that he would never do it.

Did anyone want to make it?

Judd Apatow has said he had an idea for a story, and Jonah Hill has joked he would make it when the cast are around eighty, an "old-folks-home" version. Neither amounts to a project, and Hill framed his as the only circumstance in which he would agree.

Why is this dead rather than stalled?

Because the obstacle is a decision rather than a delay. A stalled project is waiting on money, timing or a script. This one is waiting on people who have said no.

Could it be rebooted instead?

Nothing has been announced. A reboot would also lose what the original is valued for, which was less the premise than the specific performances of very young actors at a particular moment.