Super Troopers 2

We recently caught up with Broken Lizard's own Paul Soter and Jay Chandrasekhar to discuss their upcoming trip to Slamdance in support of their latest comedy The Slammin' Salmon. While chatting about that film, which stars Michael Clark Duncan as an ex-boxer who initiates a contest in his own restaurant to see which of his waiters can earn the most tip money in a single night, Jay and Paul unveiled their plans for the often talked about sequel to one of their all-time greatest hits Super Troopers. And they also discussed their future plans as producers. Here is that conversation:

Paul, I know you are getting ready to direct a video for the Eagles of Death Metal. But what else do you guys have coming up? Last time I talked to you, it seemed like you had at least twelve different projects on your plate.

Jay Chandrasekhar: Well, we are currently in the process of writing Super Troopers 2.

That's actually becoming a reality, then? Last time I talked to you guys it wasn't necessarily decided that you would be doing a sequel.

Jay Chandrasekhar: We'll see. The best thing for us to do is sit down and write the movie. And then we can say, "Here it is." And we'll see what happens from there.

Can you tell me anything about the plot at this moment in time?

Jay Chandrasekhar: Should I? Ah, why not? We pick up the story essentially right were we left off. Maybe about three months later. We are all working undercover for the lumber industry. What has happened is that there are all of these eco-terrorists that are trying to blow up the lumber mills. And we are there working as security. There was this big, sort of fun shootout at a mill. Well, we sort of scrapped that...Didn't we?

Paul Soter: What Jay is describing is the first scene. The big picture is that we are on the Canadian Border. And in reality, what has happened is that the government has found places where the markers were off, or wrong. And there are these areas of land that were thought to be Canada, but are actually part of the US. We are enlisted to patrol this area that was always thought to be Canadian soil. But no, it is actually the United States. We are enlisted because they have to send someone there to help make it part of the US territory now. We get recruited to be the highway patrolmen there. And we are surrounded by all of these Canadian people that aren't happy about this. We essentially have to impose US law on a bunch of Canadians that aren't at all happy about it.

Jay Chandrasekhar: You were probably getting a little lost with all of that lumber industry security stuff. But lumber is a hot button issue. And we did have this giant shootout planned. But we cut that scene.

Paul Soter: I don't know. It might go back in there. I think it would work as a nice dream sequence.

Jay Chandrasekhar: Let's just say that the scene went a little off base. I kept asking him, "What the heck are we doing in a lumber factory?"

Well, Lumberjacks are what's in right now.

Paul Soter: Lumberjack sheik.

Jay Chandrasekhar: You know, someone tried to get us to do a lumberjack movie once. We just didn't jump on it, I guess. I heard that the Jackass guys are doing a firehouse movie. It was supposed to be about those guys in a fire station. I don't know what happened to that. Right now, we are also trying to get a Broken Lizard show up and running on cable. It would have to be for HBO or Showtime.

Paul Soter: Yeah, we are writing and producing a lot of stuff. We just wrote a TV pilot, which we hope to produce for Fox quite soon. And we are going to produce a movie called Free Loaders. Adam Duritz brought us this script.

The singer of the Black Crows?

Jay Chandrasekhar: The Counting Crows, actually. And, yes, we have that joke in the script. That movie is about this mansion Adam owned in the Hollywood Hills. He was never able to really live there, because he was always touring. He would be on the road, and he would make friends with folks that were coming into Los Angeles. He'd say, "Ah, I have a house in Hollywood. You can stay there." So, there were these seven strangers living in this mansion. They didn't know each other, but they eventually became quite close. They were all friends of Adam's. They would throw these wild parties, and they would use the house as a way to get girls. I'd been up to that house at least eight times, and I never met Adam once. The movie is about Adam coming back to his house. He's about to get married, and these seven people have to figure out what they are going to do. That's why its called Free Loaders. One of the guys that lived in the house wrote it with another one of the guys that lived there. Adam is going to direct it, and we are going to produce it.

Sounds awesome.

Paul Soter: Yes. It is very fun stuff.

Now, I though you guys had a film heading into production called Trailer Hitch.

Jay Chandrasekhar: No, that movie was actually going to be called Cocktown. It was about these seven guys that are living with one girl. Some super models that came through there ironically decided to call it Cocktown. But we aren't working on that at the moment.

The Slammin' Salmon will play Slamdance on Saturday, January 17th and Thursday, January 22nd. Check the official http://slamdance.bside.com/2009/films/theslamminsalmon_slamdance2009;jsessionid=50E898763FC16C15480C22E3CA1B9E4D\Slamdance website for times and theater listings.