The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
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Thursday, March 22, 2018 — 5B

With feats in entertainment, 
technology 
and 
production, 
The Rogue Initiative is a 
true triple threat. The Rogue 
Initiative builds worlds with 
the aid of technology and 
immersive storytelling in a way 
that goes beyond the mediums 
they explore. Through film, 
television and video games, the 
tech-fueled, 
entertainment-
driven and collaboration-based 
start-up is making waves in 
Hollywood and beyond. The 
Daily had a phone interview 
with University alum Brad 
Etheridge, 
The 
Rogue 
Initiative’s Creative Executive, 
about the power of a story 
and the future of immersive 
content.
The Rogue Initiative builds 
the medium around the story, 
making the company a “cross-
medium” production studio. 
“That looks like the user would 
want to be that character, make 
it a video game,” Etheridge 

explained. Tailoring the stories 
to the medium creates a unique 
perspective and a changing 
role for production studios. 
But then again, Rogue is not a 
regular production studio.
Etheridge 
wants 
to 
tell 
stories, 
because 
it’s 
about 
“finding 
those 
stories 
and 
partnering 
with 
Hollywood 
creatives 
with 
those 
new 
and unique ideas.” How does 
technology 
influence 
the 
stories they tell at Rogue? 
Etheridge explains that the 
intersection 
is 
incredibly 
relevant to what they do. 
After all, they are both an 
entertainment studio and tech 
company. 
The Rogue Initiative is a 
story-focused studio that sees 
entertainment as a vehicle to 
tell stories and build worlds. 
Working 
in 
video 
games, 
Rogue 
understands 
the 
immersive power of media. 
So what do they think about 
the direction of virtual and 
augmented reality? Etheridge 
explained that at Rogue, they 
want to be on the cutting 

edge as a “forward-thinking” 
company and take part in the 
“community” 
involved 
with 
new tech.
“It’s really about the idea 
of being part of those first 
movers,” 
Etheridge 
said, 
following up with the fact that 
it needs to make “financial 
sense.” Keeping up with the 
hottest and newest tech is a 
risk — a very expensive risk 
— so for a rising start-up like 
Rogue, they want to ensure 
the choices they make in terms 
of innovative entertainment 
experiences 
are 
wise 
and 
rational.
As of now, the company 
is working on a top secret 
creative partnership project 
with “Transformers” director 
Michael Bay. By associating 
with creatives and Hollywood 
big shots like Bay, The Rogue 
Initiative and their focus on 
stories is sure be recognized. 
The intersection of mediums, 
technologies 
and 
worlds 
collide at The Rogue Initiative, 
and we can’t wait to see what’s 
to come.

On Friday, Mar. 23, Netflix 
is releasing an original movie, 
“Game Over, Man!” starring 
Adam DeVine, Blake Anderson 
and Anders Holm, of Comedy 
Central’s 
“Workaholics.” 
The film, which was created, 
written and produced by the 
three stars, follows the antics 
and adventures of three hotel 
employees who, in the midst 
of making a pivotal deal with 
a young, reckless, millionaire 
party-boy (Utkarsh Ambudkar, 
“White 
Famous”) 
to 
fund 
the making of an original 
video game, find themselves 
combating 
terrorists 
and 
fighting for their lives.
In a sense, the movie is 
reminiscent of “Die Hard” 
— a “Die Hard” for stoners, 
if you will — filled with 
suspense, shock, stunts and, 
of course, humor. Between 
scenes involving capers, such 
as the building of a rig in an 
attempt to defeat the terrorists 
through Salvia asphyxiation 
and full frontal nudity, DeVine, 
Anderson and Holm are in 
their element, proving their 
writing, production and acting 
chops.
In an interview with The 
Daily, DeVine, Anderson and 
Holm discussed the process 
of writing and creating “Game 
Over, Man!,” how it differs from 
their work on “Workaholics” 
and their favorite production 
moments.
“We wrote the movie about 
six years ago, and we’ve been 
working it, and re-working it 
and changing different stuff,” 
DeVine said. “We finally shot it 
last year at about this time, and 
then we did post-production. 
We’re excited to actually have 
it come out for everyone to see. 
“
The movie’s original release 
date was Apr. 20 but got moved 
up to Mar. 23.
“Netflix saw it and was so 
excited, and wanted to release 
it sooner,” DeVine said. “We’ve 
been sitting on the movie for a 
while, so they were like, let’s 
just put it out. Also, we like 
to think it’s a 4/20 gift for all 
the people who are celebrating 
4/20 
every 
day 
in 
their 
lifestyle. It’s a 4/20 miracle.”
The 
personalities 
and 
energies of the three are 
electric, with their sense of 
humor just as present and 
sharp in real life as it is on 
screen. While each has his 
own 
distinct 
charms 
and 
characteristics, they seem to 
speak and think in harmony, 
in a way that is only possible 
if you have written, produced 
and acted together on a TV 
show for over seven years.
“The story (of “Game Over, 
Man!”) 
was 
something 
we 
were all throwing around,” 
said Holm, who is credited 
as the principal writer of the 
film. “I’m the guy that goes 
and takes our dreams and our 
ideas and turns it into what I 
like to refer to as ‘The Quilt of 
Comedy.’”
“And you keep them warm 
at night. Thank you for that,” 
Anderson chimed in.
“That’s right,” Holm agreed. 
“I bundle the ideas up, and 

keep them warm. But this is our 
movie — the group’s movie. It’s 
a labor of love for me to be able 
to go off and write for these 
goddamn comedy geniuses.”
“God, I love you,” said 
Anderson. “I love you Anders 
Holm and Adam DeVine.”
“Okay. Now we’re hugging, 
and kissing. We’re currently 
kissing,” Holm said, feeding 
kissing noises into the phone.
“Workaholics,” 
which 
wrapped up its final season 
in 2017, features characters 
Blake, Ders and Adam who, 
as college dropout druggies 
working in a telemarketing 
office, may seem quite similar 
to Joel, Darren and Alexxx of 
“Game Over, Man!” But, when 
asked if character confusion 
was a concern, Holm seemed 
optimistic.
“When you start from the 
ground up, and you go, OK: 
Who are these people, and 
why are they in this movie? 
Then, you start to find out 
why they’re different,” Holm 
said. “And then, when you start 
writing for actors, because 
you know their strong suits 
are in certain places and not 
in others, you can still play to 
their 
performing 
strengths. 
By putting a different point of 
view and perspective in the 
story, all of a sudden you have 
a new man.”
Though 
the 
film 
was 
originally written six years 
ago, it is quite hip to the times, 
including a number of jabs at 
current societal trends, such as 
the obsession with vaping and 
the purchasing of social media 
followers. But the heart of the 
movie stays true to the original 
script.
“Everything else was added 
later on. But we were like, ‘The 
world needs to see Adam’s 
penis. Everything else, we’ll 
come up with at a later date,’” 
said Anderson and Holm.
“You 
know, 
we’re 
like 
anyone else,” Anderson added. 
“We’re walking around seeing 
idiots vaping, and we’re lucky 
enough to be able to create a 
movie and put those freakin’ 
Bozo the Clowns in a movie.”
DeVine, Anderson and Holm 
have been working on the film 
with Seth Rogen and Scott 
Rudin’s company for five to six 
years.
“We had a few studios that 
were pretty interested, and 
then Netflix came in, in a real 
way, and gave us the budget 
that we wanted to make the 
movie as big and as fun as we 
needed it to feel,” DeVine said. 
“We wanted to come from 
‘Workaholics,’ which is this 
small, basic cable television 
show, and make the movie feel 
much larger than anything 
you’ve seen from us. And 
Netflix was able to give us a 
proper budget to do that.”
The 
movie 
features 
a 
number of cameos, including 
Shaggy, Steve-O and Flying 
Lotus, as well as people who 
have appeared in episodes of 
“Workaholics,” such as Jillian 
Bell (“SuperMansion”).
“We filmed the whole movie 
up in Vancouver, and a lot of 
people we were calling just 
for one day of work. So, you 
gotta kind of pull the ‘Homie 
Pass’ for something like that. 
You know, the ‘Homie Pass,’” 

Anderson said.
At the risk of giving away 
any 
spoilers 
(apart 
from 
DeVine’s nakedness), it is safe 
to say that the film has its fair 
share of unexpected plot lines 
that drive the exciting and 
unpredictable nature of the 
movie.
“Anything that comes off as 
shocking ties into the story. 
There’s not nudity for nudity’s 
sake — it is pushing the story 
forward,” Anderson said.
“Though, I have been dying 
to see Adam’s nude penis,” 
Holm said. “It served my story, 
I’ll tell you that.”
“Yeah,” 
DeVine 
agreed. 
“Ders has a life story, and at 
the end of it, he gets to see my 
penis.”
Not only is “Game Over, 
Man!” the three’s first major 
motion picture together, but 
it is the first production of 
this caliber that they have 
approached as a single entity.
“Weirdly, for me, it was kind 
of seamless,” Holm said, of the 
transition from “Workaholics” 
to “Game Over, Man!” “We 
walked onto our giant set 
where we literally built an 
entire floor of a hotel, with 
hotel rooms, stairwells... it was 
a trip. But then I was like, let’s 
do this. We shoot tomorrow.”
“Yeah, I think if we would 
have done this movie during 
season one or two or three (of 
‘Workaholics’), we might have 
been overwhelmed,” DeVine 
said. “I think we got to this 
movie at the perfect place in 
our lives and careers. Because 
it is a lot, to be given millions 
and millions of dollars to go off 
and make a movie. But since we 
were able to do ‘Workaholics’ 
for 
so 
long, 
and 
feel 
so 
comfortable, and be the bosses 
for seven years, by the end of 
it — we got pretty comfortable 
steering the ship.”
While 
there 
is 
no 
disputing 
their 
experience 
with 
“Workaholics” 
greatly 
prepared them for their work 
on “Game Over, Man!,” there 
is a stark difference between 
working on a TV show and a 
high budget film.
“When you’re making TV — 
and we were involved in every 
aspect of the show — you’re 
reading scripts for episodes, 
you’re acting, you’re casting 
episodes, you’re watching cuts 
of episodes. So stuff can really 
back up on you,” Anderson 
said. “But in the movie biz, 
you really get to focus on each 
thing individually, and you 
have a lot more time to live in 
the scenes and the comedy, so 
that was refreshing.”
“Also, TV shows move so 
quickly. We would have to 
shoot, sometimes, eight to 10 
pages in a day, which is a ton,” 
DeVine said. “In a movie, you 
only need to shoot two to four 
pages for the whole day, so you 
really have time to make sure 
you get it right. So when you 
see a bad movie, just know that 
they really, really blew it.”
“Also,” 
Anderson 
added, 
“we were coming off of seven 
seasons of a show on TV, so it 
was kind of refreshing to have 
all those freedoms that a movie 
allows you to have.”

“And especially at Netflix, 
where you don’t have to worry 

‘Game Over, Man!’ stars 
talk on set hijinks, hilarity

ALLIE TAYLOR
Daily Arts Writer

NETFLIX

ARTIST PROFILE

The Rogue Initiative and 
cross-medium storytelling

about popcorn or candy sales — 
they allow you to be as creative 
as you want to be,” DeVine 
said. “They also don’t have “R” 
ratings, so... anything goes.”
“Anything 
goes,” 
agreed 
Anderson.
When asked about the ideal 
way to view “Game Over, 
Man!,” Anderson sung, in a 
teasing tone: “With your pants 
off.”
DeVine and Holm scoffed 
and laughed at Anderson, as if 
they suddenly disapproved of a 
joking, insincere response.
“I 
would 
say,” 
DeVine 
started, “get the biggest TV you 
can find. Watch it with your 
friends. Watch it on a gigantic 
TV — the biggest TV that you 
can get your hands on. Because 
it’s a cool, big movie, and it’s 
kind of a shame to watch it on 
your phones. This is a movie 
that I think will play better on 
a larger screen.”
“Take all the bedsheets in 
the dorm and you tie them 

together, and hang them out 
the window to make a giant 
screen, and project it,” Holm 
said in a booming, affected 
tone.
“I know you’re doing, like, 
a fake voice, but that’s a really 
good idea,” DeVine said.
As the creators and stars, 
picking a favorite moment of 
the film proved to be difficult 
for the bunch.
“They’re all our babies,” 
DeVine 
confessed. 
“A 
fan 
favorite is probably the fist fight 
when we first encountered the 
terrorists, and I am fully nude 
from the waist down. That was 
also pretty difficult to film, 
because Blake wouldn’t stop 
staring at me.”
“Knock it off!” Anderson 
refuted. “One of my favorites 
was the big stunt with us 
hanging 
between 
the 
two 
buildings, 
because 
we 
had 
never really gotten to do a stunt 
of that scale. It almost felt like 
we were Marvel heroes for a 

second.”
“I like watching all the bad 
guy stuff,” Holm said. “I’ve 
acted with these guys for so 
long, which is fun, but to sit 
back and watch characters 
that I’ve never seen come to 
life, and do what was in my 
brain in my basement, was a 
lot of fun. Watching the scene 
where Jillian (Bell), who’s just 
credited as somebody who shits 
her pants... that was funny.”
“Also, Blake shit his pants 
one time,” DeVine stated.
“No I didn’t!”
“I wish that were a joke — ”
“I did not do that,” Anderson 
said.
“Well,” explained DeVine, 
“something happened that one 
day. We’ll never know, but he 
definitely left the room and 
changed his pants, so...”
“It 
was 
a 
wardrobe 
malfunction,” Anderson said.
“Yeah. 
A 
wardrobe 

malfunction,” 
DeVine 

repeated. “Sure.”

COMMUNITY PROFILE

BECKY PORTMAN
Senior Arts Editor

SINGLE & VIDEO REVIEW: FREAKY FRIDAY

 Last week, comedic rapper Lil 
Dicky released his first single 
in three years. “Freaky Friday,” 
a spin-off of the iconic mother-
daughter comedy popularized 
by Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay 
Lohan, recruited Chris Brown, 
Ed Sheeran and Kendall Jenner 
to help compose a song in which 
Dicky and Brown switch bodies.
 As Lil Dicky’s brand is self-
deprecation based on his admit-
tedly white and lame style — an 
oddity in a genre mostly domi-
nated by Black men with swagger 
— switching bodies with Chris 
Brown opened the floodgates 
for funny lyrics that play on art-
ist stereotypes. The song begins 
with Lil Dicky’s realization that 
he’s woken up in Chris Brown’s 
body. The lyrics (actually voiced 
by Chris Brown), “I’m so fly and 
I can dance / There’s tattoos on 
my neck,” hilariously expose the 
stark contrast between Dicky and 
Brown. The lyrics go a step fur-
ther, as Lil Dicky (again, actually 
Chris Brown) takes advantage of 
his ability to say the N-word and 
rejoices at the size of his member. 
Controversial and uncomfort-
able? Maybe, but Lil Dicky has 
never shied away from push-
ing the envelope or discussing 
penises.
 The track gets even funnier 
when Chris Brown wakes up as 
Lil Dicky and realizes the perks 
of being white and barely rec-
ognizable as a celebrity: “Ain’t 
nobody judging ‘cause I’m Black 
or my controversial past / I’ma go 
and see a movie and relax.” Even-
tually, though, Brown (Dicky’s 
voice) grows tired of being some-
one else, and after he realizes he 

truly likes being himself (can I get 
a cliché?) the rappers are reunited 
with their own bodies. The outro 
provides some extra comedy, as 
Lil Dicky is thrown into the body 
of Ed Sheeran and then Kendall 
Jenner, after which he realizes 
Chris Brown is much cooler than 
Ed Sheeran and having private 
access to the female anatomy for 
a day might be interesting.
 Sonically, “Freaky Friday” 
is extremely basic, with a thin 
chord progression and beat akin 

to last year’s hackneyed hit, “I’m 
The One.” The track is much 
more entertaining when paired 
with the elaborate and extended 
music video, the driving force 
behind the growing popularity of 
the new single.
- Mike Watkins, Daily Arts Writer

 With a Chinese red paper lan-
tern as the first shot of the video, 
I didn’t exactly have high hopes 
for this music video. What was to 
follow? Subtle racism? Cultural 
appropriation? Goody, goody. 
Couldn’t wait.
 My bad feeling turned out to be 
spot on. I shouldn’t have to spell 
out why implying that the Asian 
server can’t understand English 
is racist and tokenizing as heck 
(Reminder: General Tsao’s Chick-
en is in no way actually Chinese. 

Nobody in China knows what 
that shit is). Of course, the server 
also turns out to be a mystical 
wizard and suddenly gains Eng-
lish comprehension skills when 
it serves to forward the sloppily 
constructed plot of the video. And 
all of this perfectly dropped right 
before Asian Pacific American 
Heritage Month in May.
 Follow with a brief scene where 
Lil Dicky commiserates about his 
own un-coolness whilst watching 
some clips of Chris Brown doing 
his thing. Brown may be “so good 
at dancing” and have the “sickest 
tattoos,” but did Dicky forget his 
idol also nearly beat Rihanna to 
death? Brown even references his 
“controversial past” a bit later on 
in the video. Assault isn’t funny.
 In comparison to the rest of Lil 
Dicky’s music videos, “Freaky 
Friday” isn’t all that unique; it has 
the same cringey mid-2000s bad 
meme humor, objectification and 
downright stupidity that many of 
Lil Dicky’s creations share.
 There were times when I did 
laugh. Who doesn’t enjoy watch-
ing someone poke fun at them-
selves for three minutes straight? 
Maybe if Dicky hadn’t gone out 
of his way to include every single 
problematic thing that’s common 
in movie media — objectification, 
emphasizing the “otherness” of 
non-Western people and cul-
tures, rampant sexism, tone-deaf 
racist undertones and tossing the 
N-word around as if it was some 
sort of joke — I would have even 
enjoyed it.
 Try harder, Lil Dicky. Being 
intentionally offensive is not a 
good look.
-Sam Lu, Daily Arts Writer

“Freaky Friday”

Lil Dickey ft. Chris 
Brown

School Boy Records