How 'Sausage Party' Helped Seth Rogen Make 'Preacher' [Comic-Con 2016]

Sausage Party screened during San Diego Comic-Con this year. Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg co-wrote the raunchy animated comedy about supermarket food that dreams of being taken home by a customer. Once purchased, the food panics that they are being eaten. Rogen was at a press conference for his AMC series Preacher and discussed the mashup of genres in Sausage Party, although he corrected me when I suggested it blended R-rated comedy with the animation genre. 

"I don't consider animation a genre," Rogen said. "I consider animation a medium. I think in some ways, Sausage Party is a movie that has the skin of a Pixar movie but ultimately is made for adults as opposed to children and is subversive at times, has very dirty humor I guess you would say. I don't consider them the same thing. Sausage Party I would compare more to This Is The End in that it's maybe two genres coming together. Where that was horror and comedy, this is maybe like Pixar and more R-rated humor. That's pretty much it."

Compared to Preacher, Sausage Party is fairly basic. On Preacher there's horror, comedy, drama, religion and much more. "Preacher I could argue has eight or nine genres folded in there," Rogen continued. "It's honestly why we thought we could do Preacher. We've always thought what we've done well in movies is combining genres. This Is the End had horror and comedy and Pineapple Express was kind of like an '80s action movie and a comedy. So when people, including Sam [Catlin] asked us, why do you think you were going to be able to direct this? The only answer we had was, 'Well, we've had some success juggling various genres within the same piece.' Amongst ourselves that was the thing we would say to each other at least that made us think we were able to do it basically."

Sausage Party first had a work-in-progress screening at South by Southwest to rave reviews from audiences and critics alike. Like many family oriented animated films, Sausage Party features an all star lineup of voice talent including Rogen, Kristen Wiig, Jonah Hill, Bill Hader, Michael Cera, James Franco, Danny McBride, Craig Robinson, Paul Rudd, Nick Kroll, Edward Norton and Salma Hayek. Sausage Party is scheduled for release August 12.