THE BOSS

You know him for his comedies, his love of weed, and his raspy chuckle. But at forty-two, Seth Rogen is now more powerful than you can imagine—even if he won't admit it.

- Dave Holmes

PICTURE THE SCENE. WE'RE IN HOLLYWOOD. THE EARLY AUGHTS. The Spider-Man and Harry Potter franchises are massive and growing, while the MCU is still but a twinkle in Stan Lee's eye. Lohans and Kutchers roam the earth, bigger than life. And in a conference room at a major movie studio, a young executive is giving notes on a screenplay. The writers are a couple of Canadian kids, barely out of their teens. The more recognizable one is Seth Rogen, who'd gotten his start a few years earlier on some NBC show that critics loved and nobody else remembers. He and his childhood best friend, Evan Goldberg, have collaborated on the script. And it's got potential! It's quirky, yes. Offbeat? Absolutely. But it's definitely promising.

The executive's job is to help mold these fresh new voices and their novice screenplay into something sellable. To sand down the edges. To help transform the story into something that might spawn a franchise. But won't all that sanding and transforming only smother what's exciting about the script in the first place? In the middle of the meeting, the executive offers a confession. "I got into this job because I love the movies," he tells young Seth and Evan, "and now I feel like it's my job to ruin them."

It was a formative moment for the aspiring filmmakers that has both helped shape the trajectory of their careers and, more recently, served to inspire their latest high-profile project. "That was said to us in a meeting twenty years ago," says Rogen, "by the schmuck who was dealing with us on some bad script that never went anywhere, and we just never forgot it."