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There is still quite a lot of mileage in these comedies as opposed to the horror remakes. These comedies don't rely upon the nostalgia pull of horror remakes that need that name-recognition to get it on people's radar, which seem to follow "a one weekend and done" for the most part. Apatow and Apatow-like films smartly use the average Joe appeal and don't shy away from the reality that we all pretty much live in an R-rated world and profanity-laced conversations aren't uncommon. Embracing that makes the characters even more relatable and even endearing, in my opinion. Just look at the flop that was last year's Over Her Dead Body, where Rudd figured prominently in the ads. It was just generic, forgettable romantic comedy fluff, which didn't serve him well. Put the same player in an R rated film and remove the constraints to play blue and audiences show up.

Kim Hollis: The "Apatow Gang" seems to be able to pick the right projects to appeal to a mass audience. With I Love You, Man, we actually have a movie with Apatow alums rather than any actual involvement from Apatow himself. Obviously, though, he's had an impact on their career trajectories. There's certainly a market for this sort of comedy, and I don't see it going away, but perhaps morphing into something else at some point. And the people involved - Seth Rogen, Jason Segel, Paul Rudd, et al - have the talent to keep moving forward. I do suspect that we'll see Rogen move to the director's chair at some point, actually. I think "talent tends to cluster" is the appropriate axiom here.

David Mumpower: The idea of the buddy comedy is far from unique on its own, but I think the problem the Apatow disciples are starting to face is one of novelty. It seems like the term bromance only showed up last year yet a lot of people are already sick of the very thought of it. All of the films from these branches off the Apatow tree involve this premise in some fashion. In fact, the cynic in me notes that I Love You, Man is 25% Forgetting Sarah Marshall, 60% Role Models and 15% The Promotion. It's difficult to distinguish when all of these titles seem to have that same basic tenet of bros before hos, at least to some degree.

Pete Kilmer: I think the Apatow Crew have a long life ahead of them. I introduced my older (55, 52) brothers and their wives to them with The 40 Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up. They loved the films and then reminisced about the SNL/Second City crew that made the jump to films in the early '80s (Akroyd post-Belushi, Bill Murray, and Harold Ramis). Now my brothers' kids, who are all in their 20s, are all about Jason Segel and Seth Rogen and those guys so they go see the movies with their parents. Plenty of life ahead for the Apatow gang as long as they keep making movies with a bit of 'heart' in them.

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