There is a question that begs to be asked after watching the new Judd Apatow movie, Funny People: What was it like directing your wife in a sex scene with your best friend?

But that question will have to wait until later. Because tonight is a night that decisions must be made. And focus, empathy, and an obsessive attention to detail are everything. The future career of the 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up director, Judd Apatow, depends on it.

Wearing a yellow polo shirt and blue jeans, Apatow strides into Theater 7 of the AMC Promenade in Woodland Hills, just outside Los Angeles. Instantly, he stops and knits his brow. Something is wrong.

In five minutes the first of two test screenings of Funny People will begin. And there are still choices to be finalized: Should both of Adam Sandler’s onstage breakdowns be left in? Does the scene with Sandler and his parents go on too long? Should Sandler apologize to Seth Rogen at the end of the movie or not?

Apatow’s dilemma is that he’s seen the movie so many times he’s losing perspective. The feedback from today’s audience will be crucial in finishing touches that, at this point, could make or break the movie.

“What’s wrong?” Barry Mendel, the film’s producer, asks.
“How can you rate a movie from the front row?”
Apatow sits in the aisle seat in the front row and cranes his neck to see the screen. “We shouldn’t have anyone sit in these seats,” he decides.

It’s surprising to see this level of micromanagement from Apatow, a man who’s made a specialty of comedies so casually hilarious they seem like they’re being made up in front of the camera (and sometimes they are). If he hasn’t written, produced, or directed nearly every great comedy of the past five years, he’s most likely just one degree of separation from it. He directed The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up and produced Superbad and Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and in the process staged a quiet box office comedy revolution, ending the reigns of Sandler, Jim Carrey, and Ben Stiller (all of whom are among his oldest friends) and replacing them with quirkier, schlubbier, yet more relatable characters, like Seth Rogen, Jason Segel, and Jonah Hill (unschlubby James Franco is the exception that proves the rule). The Apatow players are such unlikely stars that, after a few movies in which they more or less play themselves, they begin to seem more like old friends than members of the new comic mafia.

Thus audiences go to see an Apatow movie not for plot or cinematography but because it’s a chance to catch up with their funny friends. They could watch Rogen and Franco smoke pot for two hours and still be entertained, which basically sums up Pineapple Express if you add a little fake blood. But it’s not just with stoner man-boy comedies that Apatow has proved his chops. He produced Year One for Jack Black and Harold Ramis; Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, and Stepbrothers for Will Ferrell; and he cowrote You Don’t Mess With the Zohan for Sandler as well as Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story for John C. Reilly. The guy doesn’t know when to quit.

“I was never into drugs, but I understand that working is just a different variation of numbing out,” he admits after confessing that the 
previous night he fell asleep in the middle of a heart-to-heart conversation with his wife (and costar of Funny People), Leslie Mann.

Funny People is a scary step for Apatow because, even though it’s about comedians, it’s not that funny. In fact, it’s a drama. A drama about comedy. And in its present incarnation, it’s a whopping two hours and 20 minutes long. If it succeeds, then, like Woody Allen before him, Apatow will ascend from comedian to auteur. If it doesn’t work, he could end up being painted into a niche comedy corner full of pot smoke, dick jokes, and Jewfros.

Apatow turns to Mendel. “I’m torn on whether to take notes or not,” he says, as if it’s as serious a decision as casting a lead. He considers both options, then resolves, “Let’s not do it. We’ll just watch the movie.”

Four minutes into the screening, Apatow leans in and whispers, “Do you have a pen? I want to take notes.”