Trivia / Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping

• Acclaimed Flop: The film received great reviews, with some even calling it the best music mockumentary since This is Spın̈al Tap, but it didn't even make half of its budget back. Universal later admitted that they hoped it would develop a similar cult following.
• Box Office Bomb: Made back $9.5 million of its $20 million budget, despite reasonably good reviews.
• Creator Killer: The film's box office failure put a damper on The Lonely Island's mainstream success, with their next project going directly to Netflix. While Andy Samberg's career remained unscathed, Jorma and Akiva have mostly remained behind the scenes directing TV shows, including Samberg’s hit sitcom Brooklyn Nine-Nine.
• Dawson Casting: The Style Boyz's ages aren't made clear, though they are presumably in their mid-to-late-20s — and played by men in their late 30s.
• Directed by Cast Member: Akiva and Jorma also directed the film.
• Executive Meddling: The original title of the film was Conner 4 Real, but Universal wanted to sell it as a satire on the Justin Bieber documentary Never Say Never, despite there being little to no resemblance to it, hence the title it was released under.
• Harpo Does Something Funny: Like most comedies of its time, a majority of the scenes consist of hours and hours of improv edited down to a feature presentation. According to Jorma and Akiva, they filmed over 400 hours of usable footage, enough to make over 100 different cuts of the film's first act alone!
• Irony as She Is Cast: Justin Timberlake plays Conner's chef Tyrus, who at one point sings Conner's song "Mona Lisa" to himself while preparing food. While he sings quite well, which is understandable given who's playing him, he immediately gets chastised and told to "leave the singing to the professionals".
• Production Posse: In addition to The Lonely Island themselves, their frequent collaborators appear minor roles and cameos, including:
  • Justin Timberlake
  • Michael Bolton
  • Adam Levine
  • Snoop Dogg
  • Pharrell Williams
  • Akon (his song isn't in the movie, but remains on the soundtrack)
  • Bill Hader
  • Maya Rudolph
  • Will Arnett
  • Chester Tam (aka Richardson from Hot Rod)
• Reality Subtext: As producer Judd Apatow pointed out, the movie is basically a fictionalized biopic of The Lonely Island themselves: Andy Samberg, the most famous of the three, plays the breakout member of a trio known for audacious pop and rap songs; Jorma Taccone, the only other member who's done a significant amount of on-camera work outside of Lonely Island, plays the one other member of the group who stays with him throughout his solo career; and Akiva Schaffer, who works almost exclusively behind-the-scenes, plays the member who's completely withdrawn from the limelight.
• Working Title: Connor 4 Real.

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