on July 31 that same year, titled Funny People. Apatow wrote the film, which starred Adam Sandler and Seth Rogen as a pair of standup comedians, one of whom has a terminal illness. Other co-stars included his wife Leslie Mann and Eric Bana, who was a comedic actor in Australia before appearing in American films. The film contained more dramatic elements than Apatow's previous directorial efforts. Although the film was not financially successful (grossing $54 million domestically), the critical reception was primarily positive, with David Denby of The New Yorker magazine including the film on his top ten films of 2009, calling Funny People "a serious comedy about a funny man's brush with death" and stating that the film "is Apatow's richest, most complicated movie yet—a summing up of his feelings about comedy and its relation to the rest of existence." New York Times critic A.O. Scott, reflecting on summer films of 2009, opined that Funny People was "a movie about growing up, feeling sad, facing death—a long, serious film whose subject is the challenge of maturity. Which may be why, in the face of a softish opening weekend, various interpreters of box office data were quick to declare Funny People a flop. The summer is no time for grown-ups." In 2010, Apatow served as producer on the Forgetting Sarah Marshall spin-off Get Him to the Greek with Russell Brand reprising his role and Jonah Hill returning from the original film, albeit as a different character. Released by Universal, the film did well at the box office, grossing $92 million. In 2011, Apatow produced Bridesmaids which grossed $288.4 million worldwide and received Oscar nominations for Best Supporting Actress (Melissa McCarthy) and Best Original Screenplay (Annie Mumolo and Kristen Wiig), as well as two Golden Globe Award nominations and two Screen Actors Guild Award nominations. Bridesmaids also won a Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Comedy Movie, a People's Choice Award for Favorite Comedy Movie and was named one of AFI's Movies of the Year. That same year, he produced Girls after seeing Lena Dunham's 2010 film Tiny Furniture. The series ran from 2012 to 2017 and generating criticism over its depiction of sexual assault, male ejaculate, and Dunham's frequent on-screen nudity. In a January 2013 interview in Fast Company, Apatow and Dunham discussed the creative process of working on the show, saying that "this type of show is an auteur's