Lonely Island Marks Popstar’s 10th Anniversary With Oral History of $9 Million Cult Flop
Updated
Updated · Rolling Stone · Jun 5
Lonely Island Marks Popstar’s 10th Anniversary With Oral History of $9 Million Cult Flop
3 articles · Updated · Rolling Stone · Jun 5
Summary
10 years after “Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping” opened, The Lonely Island and collaborators published an oral history tracing how the 2016 mockumentary evolved from a stalled follow-up to “Hot Rod” into a cult favorite.
Judd Apatow helped push the trio toward a pop-star mockumentary, while Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone wrote songs before locking the plot, aiming to parody glossy artist-approved “popumentaries” with fully credible pop production.
11 days at the Forum, cameos from stars including Justin Timberlake, Pink, Mariah Carey and Seal, and late reshoots such as the limo scene shaped the film, with creators saying test screenings encouraged them to go bigger and stranger.
The movie grossed about $9 million against a $20 million budget, but the team says streaming and word of mouth turned it into a durable cult classic whose satire of celebrity branding and self-mythology now feels increasingly prophetic.
The trio stopped short of promising a sequel, though they said the film remains a personal record of their friendship and left open the possibility of a different future incarnation, even a Broadway version.