Seth Rogen not a fan of taking money from fans in online crowd-funding campaigns

TORONTO – Now that Netflix has brought back the cult favourite “Arrested Development,” Seth Rogen is waiting for word of a “Freaks and Geeks” reboot.

The Vancouver-bred movie star notes his shortlived 1999 NBC comedy has found new life on the online streaming service, where it has amassed even more fans — just as “Arrested Development” did before Netflix announced it would back fresh episodes about the dysfunctional Bluth clan.

Rogen says he’d be open to a limited run of some kind of “Freaks and Geeks” reunion if the original cast, writers, directors and producers could be assembled, too.

“If they were able to do that I would be very open to doing more ‘Freaks and Geeks’,” Rogen said Monday before attending a special screening of his big screen comedy “This is the End” in Toronto.

“I bet a lot of the people would do it.”

But the “Knocked Up” star put the kibosh on any sort of crowd-funded effort, such as the online fundraising campaigns that are fuelling a “Veronica Mars” movie and actor Zach Braff’s sophomore directing project, “Wish I Was Here.”

“It seems weird to be taking money from fans to create something, I don’t like that concept as much,” Rogen said later during a Q&A session with fans following his movie, which he co-wrote and co-directed with fellow “Superbad” and “Pineapple Express” scribe Evan Goldberg.

“People really like stuff and they get obsessed with it and I think it’s kind of taking advantage of that mentality a bit to ask them for money to bring back to life or create things they really want when there’s tons of rich people who want to invest in movies. And if your movie is remotely good you can probably get someone to give you money for it.”

Nevertheless, Rogen admitted it was not easy for him and Goldberg to convince a studio to back their apocalyptic comedy “This Is the End” — despite an A-list cast including pals James Franco, Jonah Hill, Michael Cera, Jay Baruchel, Craig Robinson and Danny McBride.

The meta horror-comedy features Rogen and his real-life celeb friends playing outrageous versions of themselves, and that appeared to be a real sticking point with financial backers.

“We had a really hard time getting it made because of the idea we were all playing ourselves,” says Rogen, who uses the film to poke fun at his reputation for smoking weed, Cera’s mild-mannered image and Franco’s much-discussed sexuality.

“People were really terrified of that. I think because it had never been done before movie studios hate to be the first one to do something and often what makes a movie exciting to us is that thing that makes a movie petrifying to them.”

“This Is the End” is about a group of six friends who find themselves fighting for survival as the end of the world nears.

Other celebs playing wild versions of themselves include Channing Tatum, Emma Watson, Mindy Kaling, Paul Rudd and Rihanna.

“This Is the End” opens June 12.