Judd Apatow (40 Year Old Virgin) casts his former real-life roommate Adam Sandler as George Simmons, a comic superstar who learns in the movie's opening scene that he suffers from a rare blood disorder that will likely kill him within a year. This news gives him the impulse to go back out and work on his stand-up, something he hasn't done in years thanks to the massive success of his movie career.

At a club, he meets struggling stand-up Ira Wright (Seth Rogen, Pineapple Express), takes a shine to him, and hires the young man both to write jokes and to be his personal assistant. Ira, who's been sleeping on a friend's pull-out couch and working a day job at a deli, enjoys the glimpse into the superstar lifestyle, but soon the protégé discovers how selfish and egocentric his mentor really is.