Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping has been the gift that keeps on giving for a decade. Rolling Stone recently published a full oral history of the film, with the Lonely Island discussing how they created one of comedy's most underrated gems.
Andy Samberg's fictional pop star—part Bieber, part Timberlake, part Macklemore, and wholly delusional—remains comedy perfection. Released June 3, 2016, the mockumentary was the first feature film from the SNL trio of Samberg, Jorma Taccone, and Akiva Schaffer. The film has aged well.
The film mocked the "popumentary" trend that was proliferating at the time. Think: artist-approved documentaries where celebrities control their own narrative. The Lonely Island did to 2010s pop stars what This Is Spinal Tap did to aging rock bands—they demolished them comedically.
What makes Popstar genuinely effective is its quotability. "Thirty Seconds to Mars is the name of a band, it is not a fact!" Drop that line in a crowd, and the comedy fans know exactly what you mean.
By 2014, Samberg, Taccone, and Schaffer were SNL royalty. They'd released three albums, created digital shorts that effectively invented internet comedy, and attempted a feature film with Hot Rod in 2007—which failed to break through at the box office. That setback did not deter their ambitions for the big screen.
The oral history features Schaffer and the creative team explaining how they built Conner4Real and why a decade-old parody about a fictional pop star still resonates more than most comedies being made today. Some characters simply endure.
The film earned its cult classic status.
