After working on Freaks and Geeks, Rogen and Franco reunited in the 2008 comedy film Pineapple Express.
In an interview, Franco revealed he and the Canadian actor “got along very well” on Freaks and Geeks because “it was sort of the first project of any quality that either of [them] had done.”
He added, “We were both really young. But afterwards, I didn’t see him that much for a while. He’s four years younger than I am, so we were at different places in our lives or something. I was, however, still talking to Judd [Apatow] every now and again, and I then bumped into Seth again. Knocked Up wasn’t even shot yet, but Judd said: ‘I’m going to do this movie with Seth and then you and him should do a movie together.'”
Following that conversation, Franco thought a project with Rogen “would be great” since he had “such a good time with him” on Freaks and Geeks.
“Anytime we’ve work together, it’s been a really cool time. Basically, he’s the same guy – he was a great guy then and he’s a great guy now,” he continued.
They went on to collaborate on 2013’s This Is the End, 2014’s The Interview, 2016’s Sausage Party, and 2017’s The Disaster Artist.
In 2020, Rogen confirmed to Howard Stern they “tried” to make a Pineapple Express sequel, though he did not mention Franco at the time.
“Thanks to the Sony hack, you can like actually find the email when Sony killed the movie,” he revealed. “It was something we were very open to several years ago, but Sony was not that interested in it.”
When asked why the studio refused to sign on, Rogen shared, “I think we probably wanted too much money. Studios, they don’t like giving away money. Weird thing.”