13 Years Ago Today, This R-Rated Apocalyptic Comedy Roasted Hollywood Like Never Before

This Is the End premiered at the Fox Village Theater on June 3, 2013, and this means today marks thirteen years since Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg pointed a camera at Hollywood and asked it to destroy itself for our amusement. It came as something truly fresh: a mainstream comedy movie that featured a bunch of the most famous people in entertainment, and a concept that was wholly dependent upon the reputations of these individuals being completely undone.

It became both a critical and commercial success, grossing $126 million worldwide (per Box Office Mojo as of June 3rd, 2026). The numbers, though, don’t quite capture what it actually was. But before that, the following are the basic details about the movie:

What Made This Is the End Unlike Any Comedy Before It?

The decision to dispense with character names altogether and have everyone play versions of themselves felt like the culmination of a process on the rise since self-lacerating TV shows like The Larry Sanders Show and Curb Your Enthusiasm made it desirable and funny for celebrities to mock their own public personas. 

What Rogen and Goldberg understood (and what most comedies of this kind get wrong) is that the joke only works if the people being mocked are genuinely in on it. They should not perform self-deprecation; they should actually submit to it. 

The apocalypse is the MacGuffin in This is the End. What the film is really about is a group of extraordinarily successful people trapped in a room together, running out of reasons to like each other. Franco is slothful, Jay Baruchel envious, Jonah Hill gluttonous, and Danny McBride greedy. It’s as though the seven deadly sins are distributed across a Hollywood Hills party. Well, close enough. In its own filthy way, This is the End is a morality play.

Every Star Who Signed Up to Destroy Their Own Reputation On Screen

The party comes to an abrupt end in This Is the End (2013) | Credits: Columbia Pictures

The core six are James Franco, Jonah Hill, Rogen, Jay Baruchel, Danny McBride, and Craig Robinson. And indeed, they carry the film, but the cameos are where it gets genuinely unhinged. Channing Tatum appears as McBride’s s*x slave. He jumps out of a truck on all fours attached to a leash. And then he takes his mask off, shocking others.

Michael Cera arrives wearing a bright, colorful windbreaker. His character functions as a kind of anti-Cera thesis statement. He is the first to die after he is impaled on a utility pole. Emma Watson shows up, wields an axe, and leaves on her own terms. And that is frankly the most in-character thing anyone does in the film. However, apparently, the scene made Watson uncomfortable, which Seth Rogen has admitted he regrets.

Aziz Ansari is one of the guests at the party, and if you have seen the movie, you know about the sinkhole that suddenly appears, perhaps leading to hell in the bowels of earth. It is what kills Rihanna and most of the stars at the party. Aziz clings to the edge of the pit and screams for help. Craig ignores him, and when he grabs Kevin Hart’s leg, he kicks him, and Aziz falls yelling, “F*** you, Kevin!”. It is only one of the several laugh-out-loud moments in the film.

Also in the movie are Mindy Kaling, David Krumholtz, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Rihanna, Martin Starr, Paul Rudd, Jason Segel, the entire Backstreet Boys (Nick Carter, Howie Dorough, Brian Littrell, AJ McLean, and Kevin Richardson), and more. This is the End is chock-full of well-known Hollywood stars.

Where Does This Is the End Stand 13 Years Later?

Seth Rogen, Jay Baruchel, Danny McBride, and Craig Robinson in This Is the End (2013) | Credits: Columbia Pictures

This is the End remains one of the most underrated comedy movies ever. But it has aged in complicated ways, and not only because of what subsequently happened between Rogen and Franco. Their friendship, which produced Pineapple Express, The Interview, This Is the End, and The Disaster Artist, ended after a series of allegations regarding Franco’s #MeToo came to light. 

But watching the film now is to watch a historical artifact about a friendship and a Hollywood era long gone. It adds an entirely unexpected gravity to this comedy that it doesn’t quite know what to do with. But there is no denying that it did capture the very particular essence of fame and how it makes people insufferable, and how the only thing big enough to force an end to that kind of lifestyle would be a disaster of biblical proportions. 

This is still, thirteen years later, the only film that could have been made by these particular people at this exact time.

What’s your favorite moment from This Is the End? Drop it in the comments below!

This Is the End is available on Prime Video to rent.