While it seems perfectly suited for his own silly, free-flowing style, the script for Andy Samberg’s new film, Hot Rod, has actually been around a while, as Samberg recounted at a recent press day for the movie. “It was written by Pam Brady, who co-wrote the South Park movie and Team America, which are two of our favorite movies, and it was originally developed for Will Ferrell,” he says. “I guess it was ’99 or something when she wrote it, so it definitely had been around, and just [because of] that alone there were adjustments we had to make. A lot of other movies had come out, and things had been done since then. But if you actually read her original script, there are so many movies that came out since she wrote that… she was ahead of the game, it was actually kind of crazy. But the first thing we had to do was make it something I was comfortable performing and so it didn’t seem like I was doing a bad Will Ferrell impression. And I think we got away with that."

The "we" to which Samberg refers to isn't a royal (or schizophrenic) affectation — it's Lonely Island collaborators Akiva Schaffer, who makes his feature directorial debut, and Jorma Taccone, who appears in the movie. To that end, though uncredited, Samberg and his longtime pals "threw every idea and weird bit that we had into it while staying to the original idea and characters Pam had put in place." One of those ideas: a fetishistic homage to Footloose. “Many years ago Akiva and I were just watching Footloose on cable and I was like, ‘This scene is amazing!,’ just the idea [that he’s] so angry and furious with rage that he has to dance," explains Samberg. "And Akiva, Jorma [and I] have written a bunch of other stuff together, and we had that scene in a few other things before this project that never got made. So when we got to Hot Rod, I was like, ‘We can do the Footloose scene!’” Yes, Samberg got to dance, at long last. It'll be another 24 hours or so before projected box office numbers dictate what form of loose celebration, if any, next takes place...