There’s a conspicuous hole in Seth Rogen’s miles-long resume as an actor, producer and writer.
He’s never done a Marvel or DC film. This despite dabbling in superheroes with work on “The Green Hornet,” “The Boys,” and “Invincible.”
Speaking with Polygon about the upcoming Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem film, Rogen answered why he’s never tackled a Marvel or DC project. .
“Honestly, probably fear,” Rogen answered. “We really have a pretty specific way we work; me and Evan [Goldberg] have been writers for 20 years at this point. It’s a fear of the process, honestly. And I say that knowing nothing about the process. There are a lot of Marvel things I love.”
He continued: “It’s mostly a fear of how would we plug into the system they have in place, which seems like a very good system, and a system that serves them very well. But is it a system that we would ultimately get really frustrated with? And what’s nice about [Mutant Mayhem] is that we’re the producers of this. So we dictated the system, and we dictated the process in a lot of ways. And that’s what’s also appealing for us about :The Boys: and the other bigger franchise-y type things we’ve done, is that we are creating the infrastructure and process for them, not plugging into someone else’s infrastructure and process. We’re control freaks!”
Rogen isn’t really into the Marvel or DC universe. His taste? “It’s everything that is not Marvel and DC. So that eliminates a lot right away. I grew up going to comic book shops, and it’s funny, video stores are making a slight comeback in some ways. This idea of browsing and not having things fed to you — as I think people feel we are now when it comes to entertainment — but instead entering the fair market of entertainment and just wandering around and seeing what catches your eye.”
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem is in U.S. theaters on Aug. 2, 2023.