Seth Rogen finds it tough watching TV show Entourage - because his idea for a similar inside-Hollywood expose series was turned down by the same network bosses who greenlighted Mark Wahlberg’s project.

Wahlberg’s show has become a huge success and Rogen can’t understand why HBO bosses didn’t pick up on a similar idea he pitched them years before.

The 26-year-old tells Eonline.com, “I just remember feeling really bitter. We thought the stuff we were writing was funny… and it just seemed crazy that no one else liked it. You start to question your own sanity. Like, ‘Our HBO pilot isn’t funny, but Entourage is?’”

Rogen insists the idea he came up with with his Knocked Up co-star Jason Segel would have been a huge hit: “We all used to smoke weed all day instead of working, and we’d just play video games for months on end. But we all really wanted to work and make movies.”

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WENN

Adam Sander and Seth Rogen will star with in Leslie Mann in an untitled comedy that Judd Apatow is set to direct from his own script.

The plot is being kept under wraps. Mann (Apatow’s wife) previously starred with Rogen in Apatow’s 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up, while Sandler and Apatow worked together with Robert Smigel writing Don’t Mess With the Zohan, a comedy, in which Sandler also stars, that opens June 6.

Production on the new comedy is set to start later this year.

Sandler is currently shooting the Adam Shankman-directed comedy Bedtime Stories for Disney. Mann stars opposite Zac Efron in the Burr Steers-directed 17 Again for New Line, and will star with Owen Wilson in the comedy Drillbit Taylor (set to release March 21), which Rogen co-wrote and Apatow produced. Rogen, who voices a character in Horton Hears a Who, is shooting Kevin Smith’s Zack and Miri Make a Porno.

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From Vanity Fair:

Alfred Hitchcock created some of the most arresting images in film history. For this year’s Hollywood Portfolio, the heart of our 14th annual Hollywood Issue, 21 of the finest actors working today have joined with four regular Vanity Fair photographers to re-create 11 of Hitchcock’s most iconic scenes.

“What makes these scenes so impressive is that they don’t last long in the movies, but they have become classic,” says photographer Art Streiber, who shot two of the portfolio pictures. “They hold up 50, 60 years later, as stills, without dialogue. You know immediately what it is.”

One reason the images endure is that Hitchcock was such a stickler about getting things on set exactly the way he wanted them, and everybody working on the Vanity Fair shoots was mindful of making sure the details were correct this time, too. That wasn’t always easy. Given the lack of phone booths today, it was impossible to find one the right size for the picture inspired by The Birds (with Jodie Foster in the Tippi Hedren role). So senior photography and beauty editor SunHee Grinnell, who oversaw the portfolio, had a 1960s-vintage phone booth built for the occasion.

Getting the man-versus-biplane scene from North by Northwest right began with a suit. Knowing it was important to match the one worn by Cary Grant in the original, Grinnell handed the assignment to senior style editor Jessica Diehl, who styled all 11 photos. “I asked Jess, ‘Can you find out who made Cary Grant’s suit in that film?,’ and it turned out to be Norton & Sons, on Savile Row, which still exists,” Grinnell says. After a phone call to the London clothier, and a set of measurements for Seth Rogen, who took on the Cary Grant role, a replica was on its way. Meanwhile, Streiber found a piece of unplanted farmland northwest of Los Angeles, rented the right plane, and hired a pilot. Things got tricky when an official on the ground, charged with making sure no aviation regulations were violated, demanded that anyone within 500 feet of the plane be sent away. “There were farmworkers just north of where we were shooting,” Streiber says, “and we had to clear them out. Then we had to track down the owner and pay their salaries for the day.” The next challenge was Rogen. “We probably did a dozen passes where Seth was actually running,” Streiber says. “At each go he probably ran for about 20 yards at a full sprint, which is not something Seth Rogen does on a regular basis.”

The Lifeboat still was taken in the water tank of a Hollywood back lot. Contributing photographer Mark Seliger had a dock built so that he could lean in with his camera when the light was just right. “It was a perfect Hollywood moment,” Seliger says. “The weather was great, we were outdoors, and the water was controlled. Everything is perfectly orchestrated by Hitchcock, so my job was remarkably easy.”

The stars didn’t merely model, but engaged in some real acting. Especially notable was Renée Zellweger, who stood in for Kim Novak’s Vertigo heroine. “Renée was watching the scene over and over while getting her hair and makeup done,” says Grinnell, “and when she came on set she started breathing really hard, almost hyperventilating.” Says contributing photographer Norman Jean Roy, “She just absolutely exploded on the set and truly became that character like I’ve never seen before. We were in awe.”

Features editor Jane Sarkin had the grand task of figuring out which actors would not only be right for the parts but also give readers a Hollywood Who’s Who for 2008. The performers who were kind enough to take part include six Oscar winners: Zellweger, Foster, Charlize Theron, Gwyneth Paltrow, Julie Christie, and Eva Marie Saint. Other participants had breakout performances in 2007: Josh Brolin and Javier Bardem (No Country for Old Men), Tang Wei (Lust, Caution), Ben Foster (3:10 to Yuma), Casey Affleck (The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford), Rogen (Knocked Up), Emile Hirsch (Into the Wild), James McAvoy (Atonement), and Marion Cotillard (La Vie en Rose). Still others have proved themselves masters of two domains, doing huge box office while pleasing critics: Naomi Watts (of Eastern Promises and the Ring movies) and Keira Knightley (of Atonement and the Pirates of the Caribbean series). There’s also a go-to character guy, Omar Metwally (so good in Munich), and two “actor’s actors”: Jennifer Jason Leigh and Robert Downey Jr. Throw in a talented beauty to rival any Hitchcock heroine—Scarlett Johansson—and you’ve got the entire, ridiculously star-studded cast.

VF Go here to watch a behind-the-scenes video from this photoshoot.

These pictures are so good, that I didn’t want to crop them down. Click on each picture to see them in full view. They are amazing - amazing pictures. Annie Leibovitz never fails.

Heavyweight actors like George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg and Jake Gyllenhaal all flirted with the project, so when it was the literally heavyweight star of “Knocked Up” who was ultimately tapped to bring the iconic Green Hornet to the big screen, it was as if millions of fanboys cried out in terror: “Seth Rogen as Britt Reid? Say what?”

“[The fan reaction] was a little surprising. I love the idea! I think it’s going to be a unique and interesting movie,” the jocular always-self-deprecating Rogen announced, before adding with a laugh, “but nerds love complaining. You go on [the Web site for] Ain’t It Cool News, and everybody complains about everything. They could find out Jesus Christ was making a movie with Frank Miller, and they’d say, ‘That’s a terrible combination!’ ”

In all fairness, Frank Miller announcing “Jerusalem: The Real Sin City” might be only slightly more bizarre than Rogen as a costumed super. But, then, his “Green Hornet” will be like no superhero movie we’ve ever seen before, the 25-year-old star insisted.

“Just a few weeks ago, [co-writer Evan Goldberg and I] laid out our outline for the movie to the studio, and before the phone call, Evan and I were like, ‘This is not like any superhero movie — they might just hate that,’ ” Rogen recalled. ” ‘It’s not using any of the normal superhero movie formats. It’s not an origin story. It’s more like a regular action movie.’ [But] they really liked it and told us to go for it.”

So hold onto your green fedoras, Hornet fans! The comedian told MTV News that he’s getting buff for his starring role as the flick’s titular character. Well, sort of.

“You should believe that I can do some physical activity,” Rogen laughed. “You have to believe I can do something.”

Getting slim is just one of the ways Rogen is staying true to the action aspects of the character, he asserted. And fans worried about just how well the ferocious talent behind “Superbad” and “Knocked Up” writes action? They should hold off judgment until his next movie hits theaters, Rogen said.

“I think when people see ‘Pineapple Express’ it will make more sense to them,” Rogen teased of his next project, a high-octane action/comedy co-starring James Franco.

But while Rogen and Goldberg are committed to action, the writing duo actually have two outlines for the movie, the actor confessed, similar in some respects but varying greatly in tone.

“There’s a more comedic version and a less comedic version, and we don’t know what will feel right until we’re actually writing it,” he revealed to MTV News. “We were about to start writing the script, and then the [writers’] strike hit.

“It’s really hard to wrap our head around what the movie will be until we’ve written the script,” he added.

But while Rogen admitted to vacillating between the two versions, he’s anything but ambivalent on another tough decision, unabashedly banging the drum for one of two actors to play Kato, the Hornet’s Asian manservant and partner in crime.

“I think what’s most important about the Kato part is it’s someone that you believe can kick the sh– out of a lot of people,” Rogen said of the role made famous by Bruce Lee in the late-’60s television version. “[’Kung Fu Hustle’ star] Steven Chow is incredible. That was someone we had talked about. I’m a big Tony Jaa fan also.”

On the matter of a director, however, Rogen was less committal. “We’re always thinking of people who we wouldn’t think of. We want guys who will bring something new to the table,” he said. “There are two schools of thought: You can get the guy who’s a great action-movie director, who’s done a million action movies. Or you get the guy who’s never done it but has fresh ideas.

“[In the end] we want someone who will make it better than we could have made it,” he concluded.

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