Black comedy: This Is the End
Jay Baruchel arrives in Los Angeles to visit with old friend and fellow actor Seth Rogen, who invites Baruchel to attend a housewarming party hosted by James Franco. At the raucous party, many celebrities and others drink, take drugs, have sex, and commit other immoral acts. Jay is uncomfortable being around many people he does not know well—including Jonah Hill, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Michael Cera, Craig Robinson, and Emma Watson—and Seth accompanies him to a convenience store for cigarettes.Beams of blue light from the sky suddenly carry away several store customers. The frightened Seth and Jay flee to James’ home amid mass chaos, but find the party undisturbed by blue beams. The partygoers scoff at Jay’s account, but rush outside because of a powerful earthquake and see the Hollywood Hills on fire. A large crack opens in the earth, and Michael, Christopher, Rihanna, Mindy Kaling, Aziz Ansari, Kevin Hart, Jason Segel, Martin Starr, and David Krumholtz are among those killed. Seth, Jay, James, Jonah, and Craig survive, and learn that the largest earthquake in California history has struck Los Angeles. Believing that as famous actors they will soon be rescued, the five take inventory of the available supplies, including limited food and water, various drugs, and a pistol. They set up a ration system, board up the doors and windows, and await help.
The next morning, Danny McBride—who, unknown to the others, crashed the party and fell asleep—wakes up first. Ignorant of the crisis he wastes much of the supplies, and disbelieves the others’ accounts until a desperate outsider seeking aid is decapitated at their door. The men pass the time by taking many drugs and filming a homemade sequel to the 2008 film Pineapple Express, which several of the group had appeared in. Tensions rise, however, due to various conflicts, including Jay and Seth’s growing estrangement, and the others’ skepticism of Jay’s belief that the disasters might be the Apocalypse the Book of Revelation predicts.
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Emma returns, armed, and reports mysterious animal noises. Due to a misunderstanding she quickly leaves, taking all of the drinks. Craig is chosen to venture outside to the cellar for water, but is frightened by something monstrous. The group successfully reaches the water but Danny’s boorish behavior results in much being lost, and the others decide to evict him. Danny tries to kill the others with the pistol but fails as the gun is a prop, and angrily leaves the home.Craig’s experience causes him to believe in Jay’s theory of the Apocalypse and that the blue beams have, as part of the Rapture, taken good people to Heaven. He volunteers to explore a neighboring home for supplies with Jay. Jonah secretly wishes for Jay to die, and is subsequently raped by an incubus. Now demonically possessed and supernaturally strong, Jonah chases James and Seth, while Craig and Jay flee a demonic bull. The group subdues Jonah, but during an exorcism attempt, a fire destroys the home and Jonah’s body, forcing the four outdoors.Regretful for the mistakes in his life that kept him from Heaven, Craig volunteers to sacrifice himself so the others can escape a large winged demon.
The plan succeeds but, unexpectedly, Craig is taken in the Rapture because of his good deed, giving hope to the group. When cannibals led by Danny capture the men, James similarly volunteers to sacrifice himself. Although the plan succeeds and a blue beam begins to take him, his taunting sneers to Danny cause the beam to vanish, and the cannibals eat him. As a gigantic demon is about to consume Seth and Jay, they reaffirm their friendship and await death. A blue beam suddenly strikes Jay, who pulls Seth up with him, but together they are unable to reach Heaven. Seth lets go to allow his friend to ascend, and as he falls to certain death is also taken by the Rapture.Craig, now an angel, welcomes Jay and Seth in Heaven. He explains that it is a paradise where any wish comes true. Jay wishes that the Backstreet Boys would reunite, and the film ends with the band performing “Everybody (Backstreet’s Back)” for a raucous heavenly party.
According to Rogen and Goldberg, “We always wanted to do a movie where people played themselves and something extraordinary happened; the initial version of this movie was Seth Rogen and Busta Rhymes were filming a music video and a movie respectively, on the Sony lot, and Antmen attacked from the center of the earth.” The film is also based on Jay and Seth versus the Apocalypse, a short film created by Stone and Goldberg in 2007. In an interview with The Guardian, Goldberg commented on influences contributing to the film, saying “if you drilled down to the core of what I do, it’s just ripping off little bits of Charlie Kaufman. Seth and I always loved The Larry Sanders Show too. And the popularity of reality television now also feeds into that idea of whether what we’re watching is actually real. We thought working with our friends in that situation would be awesome because they’re all comedians willing to take stabs at themselves.”During production, the film was titled The Apocalypse, a name later changed to The End of the World (20th Century Fox owns the rights to the title The Apocalypse). The film entered post-production in July 2012 The name changed on December 20, 2012, to This Is the End, upon the release of its first trailer and poster.In March 2013, the release date was pushed forward two days to June 12, 2013. On April 1, 2013, Sony released an April Fools’ Day trailer for Pineapple Express 2, which was in fact a teaser trailer for This Is the End. According to Rogen and Goldberg, however, the homemade Pineapple Express 2 film in This Is the End depicts what they envision for the actual sequel.
