14 SHARES Facebook Twitter

If you were one of those people that noticed the similarities between James Franco’s stoner in the upcoming Judd Apatow stoner-action film, “Pineapple Express” and Brad Pitt’s couch-surfing pothead in “True Romance,” you did so for good reason.

In the latest issue of Entertainment Weekly (not online yet) Apatow admitted to basing ‘Express’ off of Pitt’s 4/20-enthusiast from the 1993 Tarantino-written, Tony Scott-directed “True Romance.”

“The whole idea of the movie comes from Brad Pitt’s stoner in ‘True Romance,’ Apatow said. “I Thought it would be funny to make a movie in which you follow that character out of his apartment and watch him get chased by bad guys.”

“I thought it would be great to do one of those pot movies, but with the action of a Jerry Bruckheimer movie,” he elaborated to ReelzChannel in December.

And that’s basically what happens in the film, Seth Rogen’s (mostly) straight-laced character in the film witnesses a murder committed by crooked cops and he inadvertently implicates James Franco’s weed-dealing stoner when he comes over to his house to tell him all about it. The hilarity and insanity ensues from there (you’ve likely already seen the very-funny R-Rated trailer featuring M.I.A. that gets you quite pumped for the film).

We can all thank Brad Pitt who apparently did a lot of improvising on set in the original film including the idea that his character should never leave the couch, and wearing the rasta hat his character wears which he apparently found abandoned on a street in Venice, Italy. He took it, washed it, and wore it for the film.

“True Romance” was also apparently part of a larger screenplay written by Tarantino and “Pulp Fiction” co-writer Roger Avary and the second half of that screenplay became “Natural Born Killers” (In both films Tom Sizemore plays a cop). Of course Avary didn’t recieve a writing credit for either film, which explains the reason why he and Tarantino had a very public falling out (QT apparently ripped-off Avary at every turn).

Pitt apparently wanted the lead role of Clarence (that went to Christian Slater), but was busy filming “Kalifornia,” so he opted out for the smaller role of Floyd the stoner.

For ‘Pineapple Express,’ Apatow had originally cast James Franco as the straight man and Rogen as the stoner, but at their table reading it became clear to him that he should switch their roles. “I remember the first table read – it was just astounding how comfortable [Franco] was with the comedy,” Apatow told EW. “That’s the thing about him, you tell him, ‘OK, you’re going to play a pot dealer,’ and he comes back with a three-dimensional character you totally believe. He take [his work] very seriously, even when it’s comedy.”

Did Franco really indulge for the part? Unfortunately not he says, “The truth is that they got me pot with no THC in it. I’m wondering if I should come up with a new answer. Just say, ”Yeah, we smoked a lot of pot on that movie,” he told EW in a separate piece.

“Pineapple Express” (directed by normally arty indie director David Gordon Green no less) hits theaters August 8. There might not be a summer film we’re anticipating more at this point. But what we really want to know is, when is someone going to make a film based on Gary Oldman’s ‘Romance’ character who’s a white-rasta pimp who thinks he’s black? Comedy genius is just waiting to be mined, people.