Island on the screen

Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping | Andy Samberg on living the dream and keeping it real. Nothing’s gonna stop him now…

“We pitched other names to the studio,” Andy Samberg told Jimmy Kimmel. “I pitched them ‘ Gremlins 3’ and they were like, ‘No’. So I was like, ‘All right, Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping!’” Which is a daft title, of course, but a clear improvement on Top Secret Untitled Lonely Island Movie.

The secret’s now out in poster and trailer form, all looking like Justin Bieber: Never Say Never crossed with Katy Perry exposé Part Of Me, or a US variant on Ricky Gervais’ Anglo-side mock’n’roll romp Life On The Road, also due here late-August. It looks madly silly too, but that’s what you want from a movie by Saturday Night Live mock-pop trio The Lonely Island, whose last film was 2007’s little-seen Hot Rod and whose doltish ditties include ‘I Just Had Sex’ (“The best 30 seconds of my life!”).

Judd Apatow has long wanted to produce a movie with Samberg, Jorma Taccone and Akiva Schaffer. His wish comes true via the sorry story of Samberg’s Conner4Real, a pop star with an army of fans (‘Connfidantes’), a 30-strong entourage and a stadium-sized ego, which pops when a flopped solo album forces a reunion with his old boy band.

“It takes a village to make me look dope,” says Conner4Real, whose villagers include a roadie (Bill Hader) for guitars he never plays and unicorn trainers. It took a village of co-stars/cameos to make the film too, including Usher, Imogen Poots, Pink, Snoop Dogg, Simon Cowell, alt-harpist Joanna Newsom (Samberg’s wife4real), Martin Sheen, a “so expensive” Adam Levine hologram and, as Conner’s silver-tongued PR, Sarah Silverman.

“I’d love to get Conner to the point where he’s just kind of everywhere,” deadpans Silverman. “Like oxygen or gravity… or clinical depression.” Whether Conner gets wet or not, Gremlins- style, expect no less this summer. 4Real. KH ETA | 26 August Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping opens this summer.