NEW YORK — Lonely Island, the trio of Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone, has technically already made the leap to the big screen in 2007’s wannabe daredevil comedy “Hot Rod.” But it won’t be until “Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping” hits theaters that the full experience of Lonely Island lands at the movies.
“This is the first one that’s really ours, from the ground up,” says Samberg. ” ‘Hot Rod’ was a script we inherited and then we reworked it. … Whereas this one we completely wrote and are producing it.”
“Popstar,” in theaters June 3, was written by the threesome, co-directed by Schaffer and Taccone, and stars Samberg as Conner4Real, a rapper whose suddenly plummeting fame forces him to reunite with his boy band. The film, produced by Judd Apatow, places the former “Saturday Night Live” digital short creators in their wheelhouse: satirizing pop music while simultaneously celebrating it with surprisingly well-crafted original songs. (The soundtrack will double as the fourth Lonely Island album.)
Though the title plays on Justin Bieber’s 2001 film “Never Say Never,” Samberg says the group was inspired by other self-aggrandizing music documentaries, too, to make a contemporary ode to “This Is Spinal Tap.”
Rest assured, there will be Bieber jokes. But the target of “Popstar” is broader, taking in all of today’s social media-saturated music world. Pink and Adam Levine are among the movie’s cameos.
