Why 'Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping' should have been a bigger hit

Andy Samberg takes the stage in “Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping.” (Universal Pictures)

There’s an intention behind the jokes of "Popstar" that aim at high-status targets.

"Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping"
Released June 3, 2016
Directed by Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone
Where to Watch

The entire table seemed set for "Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping" to be the enormous comedy hit of the summer of 2016. 

For the previous decade, the artists of The Lonely Island – childhood friends Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer, and Jorma Taccone – had honed their comedic chops and musical stylings to drop viral music video hit after hit while Samberg was a cast member of "Saturday Night Live." Their first was the digital short "Lazy Sunday," the 2005 classic that was so popular online, it put YouTube on the map as a formidable platform. Schaffer and Taccone would continue to collaborate with Samberg to many several viral sensations to give SNL buzz, including "I'm on a Boat," "Dick in a Box," and "Natalie Raps.” As funny and crude as the songs were, The Lonely Island were astonishingly ahead of its time in foreseeing the rise of meme culture even as far back as "Lazy Sunday."

Samberg left SNL in 2012 to continue his career in film and television. While he never rose to the level of past SNL veterans who became massive comedy stars like Bill Murray, Eddie Murphy, Adam Sandler, or Will Ferrell, Samberg parleyed his creativity and goofball charm into becoming a reliably funny onscreen presence. So when he reunited with his Lonely Island collaborators to make an entire movie featuring their hilarious songs, the film had the potential to be as big as any of their viral online hits.

"Popstar" brings us into the world of Conner4Real (Samberg), a young music sensation about to release his next album and go on tour. Conner is a former member of the boy pop-rap band Style Boyz with his childhood friends Owen (Taccone) and Lawrence (Schaffer), that helped him rise to fame before becoming a solo act. Owen still works behind Conner as the DJ, while Lawrence abandoned the industry after a falling out with Conner to start a pot farm. 

Like other comedies about musicians, "Popstar" is in a mockumentary format, inspired by the several legit concert documentaries on stars like Justin Bieber, Katy Perry, and Miley Cyrus that were released in the previous years. Through "Popstar," we learn that Conner's ambition outraces his musical strengths, and the album and tour underperform. Meanwhile, his celebrity lifestyle and image pressure on him mentally, and the personal support crew he counts on continues to dwindle as Conner's fortunes go south. The story of "Popstar" rings familiar to anybody who's seen a few movies and shows about musicians, but what keeps the comedy moving is keeping the plot structure loose enough to include hilarious sketches about modern-day celebrity structure.

The movie highlights are what made The Lonely Island famous in the first place: The songs. "Popstar" has several entertaining and amusing pieces, both in video form and through concert footage.

Much of the satire has a real bite to it. Conner's song "Equal Rights" aims at Macklemore and Ryan Moore's "Same Love" about a singer praising LGBTQ rights while making repeated references to his own heterosexuality.

"Popstar" was born from producer Judd Apatow's desire to work with The Lonely Island on a movie. The trio had collaborated on another film, 2007's "Hot Rod," that didn't find an audience at the theater, and their individual silver screen efforts also failed to deliver upon release. But there was a growing cult fandom that was arising from these projects, so you can understand that, in theory, this crowd would likely show up to support The Lonely Island with a premise designed to play to their viral popularity. It was the first movie the trio generated from scratch. Clearly, the plot mirrors their own experiences of rising to fame, having one member become a breakout star, and then unable to recapture the magic individually. All things considered, "Popstar" was a solid bet to be a hit.

The bet failed miserably. "Popstar" debuted in eighth place on its opening weekend with $4.7 million, demolished by a wave of cartoon characters and superheroes that have come to dominate theaters. "X-Men: Apocalypse" was in its second week and quadrupled the take of "Popstar," and everybody despised "Apocalypse," which gives you a sense of how heartbreaking the mockumentary's performance was. Word of mouth could not save it either, as "Popstar" quickly tanked in the following days and was out of first-run theaters after its third week.

"It did so badly that it was depressing, but yes, it's also about how much you put in," Samberg recalled in 2020. "We went on a huge press tour and put all this energy in to promote it, and then when you realize that none of that really made a difference, you feel embarrassed or whatever. But never about the content of the movie. And certainly knowing now that people are finding it, loving it."

"Popstar" received mixed reviews from critics and audiences, according to Rotten Tomatoes. Comedy is subjective, especially in movies, but "Popstar" is more thoughtful and challenging than your average lazy humor. There's an intention behind the jokes that aim at high-status targets.

"The film is packed with expertly awful original songs and quick riffs, as well as longer set pieces that, even when they feel loose, are laugh-out-loud good," wrote Allison Willmore for BuzzFeed. "But it's in the vicious cycle of celebrity and schadenfreude that the otherwise genial Popstar finds its edge."

In an age of streaming, it's harder to stumble upon forgotten gems without intentionally looking for a movie, as we did with cable television. But "Popstar" is worthy of seeking out on your own and would make a hilarious triple-feature with two other movies that bombed initially but became cult classics, 1984's "This is Spinal Tap" and 2008's "Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story." As we head to the midway point of the second Ultimate Movie Year, it's time to elevate "Popstar" as one of the great film comedies of the modern era and has the potential to catch a lot of people by surprise.

"It's a good time to have comedies that are re-watchable and that people love and that they can find on streaming," Samberg said. "And that's certainly what we are told that we make. And always, for us, is the goal: to make a comedy that you want to watch a bunch of times and quote with your friends and all that kind of thing. So I think, yes, ultimately, I'm very happy for where Popstar ended up … but also I would have rather it made tons of money and made us all tons of money."

Next Week: "Raiders of the Lost Ark"