Going back to the 1970s, “Saturday Night Live” has long been a breeding ground and launching pad for comedians transforming into bonafide stars. Sometimes that’s SNL regulars, sometimes its writers turned filmmakers (Adam McKay, for example), and sometimes it’s whole package teams like The Lonely Island crew who write, direct and star in their shorts and films. Taking a page from the Lonely Island gang is their successors, Please Don’t Destroy, a similar absurdist comedy trio that now handles all the digital shorts for SNL. And following in the long SNL tradition, the group, who have only been around at SNL for a year now, are now making their own feature-length comedy with producer Judd Apatow. He often plays a mentor role to similar up-and-coming comedians.
According to Variety, Ben Marshall, John Higgins, and Martin Herlihy, the trio known as Please Don’t Destroy, are joining forces with Apatow to produce an untitled buddy comedy pic written by the troupe with SNL alumn Paul Briganti set to direct. The trio is providing the script, starring in various roles, and also producing.
The outlet also provides an early synopsis for the unnamed pic:
It centers on three childhood friends who live and work together. When the threesome decides they don’t like their life trajectory, they set off to find a gold treasure that is rumored to be buried in the nearby mountain.
This is one of many projects in the works from Apatow as he’s helped develop dozens of films from rising comedians, some of which come to fruition, some that don’t. The project brings to mind the Lucas Brothers, a comedic duo made up of identical twins that also worked on the script for “Judas & The Black Messiah.” Apatow was reportedly helping them with an original project in 2021, but we still haven’t heard what’s to come of that one yet. Apatow’s other projects in recent years include “The Bubble,” “The King of Staten Island,” “Trainwreck,” and “The Big Sick,” the latter three mentoring projects for comedians Pete Davidson, Amy Schumer, and Kumail Nanjani.
In a similar mode, Apatow’s next big release coming in late September is “Bros,” a charming gay romantic comedy built around comedian Billy Eichner. More additions to the cast are expected to be announced in the coming weeks, as filming has already started in North Carolina. In fact, the studio has already given it a release date of August 18, 2023, so this one is definitely on the way.