‘An American Pickle’ Debuts on HBO Max Aug. 6

By Michael Malone
published

Seth Rogen plays struggling laborer, and also plays his great grandson after he’s brined in a pickle vat for 100 years

(Image credit: HBO Max)

HBO Max premieres the film An American Pickle, starring Seth Rogen, Aug. 6. Brandon Trost directs the project, based on a Simon Rich novella that ran in the New Yorker called Sell Out. 

Rogen pays Herschel Greenbaum, a struggling laborer who immigrated to America in 1920 with dreams of building a better life. While working at his factory job, he falls into a vat of pickles and is brined for 100 years. He’s perfectly preserved and emerges in present day Brooklyn. 

When Greenbaum seeks out his family, he learns his only surviving relative is his great grandson Ben, who is also played by Rogen. Ben is a mild-mannered computer coder that Herschel cannot even begin to understand.

Sarah Snook, Jorma Taccone and Maya Erskine are also in the cast.

Michael Malone
Michael Malone

Michael Malone, senior content producer at B+C/Multichannel News, covers network programming, including entertainment, news and sports on broadcast, cable and streaming; and local broadcast television. He hosts the podcasts Busted Pilot, about what’s new in television, and Series Business, a chat with the creator of a new program, and writes the column “The Watchman.” He joined B+C in 2005. His journalism has also appeared in The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Playboy and New York magazine.