Sausage Party, the first R-rated CG animated movie, is about one sausage leading a group of supermarket products on a quest to discover the truth about their existence and what really happens when they become chosen to leave the grocery store. The film features the vocal talents of a who’s who of today’s comedy stars – Michael Cera, James Franco, Salma Hayek, Jonah Hill, Nick Kroll, David Krumholtz, Danny McBride, Edward Norton, Seth Rogen, Paul Rudd, and Kristen Wiig.

Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg have been the masterminds behind some of the world’s most outrageous, inventive, and hilarious comedies – from Superbad and Pineapple Express to This Is the End and The Interview. Now, they take us into previously unchartered world of supermarket aisles.

“There’s an old tradition in animated films – especially the CG ones – about the secret life of the things around us,” says Goldberg. “We’ve seen cars, we’ve seen toys… we love all of those movies. And eventually we realized there’s an extremely comedic version of it in the secret life of food.”

“It’s a very bizarre take on a hero’s journey,” says Rogen. “More than any of our other movies, it allows that structure of the outcast who has a call to release the masses from their shackles. We could do a movie with these incredibly structural ideas – and at the same time, a lot of insane stuff happens.”

Though the voice cast includes some of the usual suspects, two of the not usual suspects, Edward Norton and Salma Hayek, were excited about their places in the food pyramid.

Edward Norton plays Sammy Bagel, Jr., having called dibs on the role from the beginning and refusing to let anyone else be cast in the part. “Edward was one of the first people we ever told about the project, and he kind of lost his mind for it,” says Goldberg. “He became obsessed very quickly.”

Norton also acted as something of a casting director – according to Rogen and Goldberg, Norton was instrumental in bringing Salma Hayek on board. “We didn’t really know her at all – I’d been at a dinner with her once,” says Goldberg. “She came in and went as hard as anyone else. She was literally sweating in the booth from jumping around. You understand why she’s such a successful, awesome star – she gives it her all.”

Bill Hader, who has voiced film roles in countless animated features, takes on the role of Firewater. “He’s the master of this stuff,” says Goldberg.

“It’s one of the weirdest characters ever,” says Rogen, “and then the animators came up with all of the hand gestures.”

Goldberg says that casting Nick Kroll was not only inspired – it was an inspiration that has struck before. “Before this movie, Nick already had two credits on IMDb for a character named ‘Douche,’” says Goldberg. “We gave him his third.”

One more way that Sausage Party pays homage to the animated movies that came before it was in the hiring of Alan Menken to co-score (with Christopher Lennertz) the film and write the music for a song. An eight-time Oscar® winner and 19-time nominee, Menken has brought memorable music to such family classics as The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Hercules, Enchanted and Tangled.

Menken’s song, The Great Beyond, is sung by the items in the supermarket every morning. When a human picks an item to place in a shopping cart, that’s the highest honor. Every grocery store item is excited to be chosen to go to “The Great Beyond,” that is, until some of their cohorts discover what happens to food after it leaves the store.

“The song is kind of like a prayer that outlines their belief system,” says Rogen. “The food sings this song every morning to reaffirm the thought that it’s good to get chosen. As it turns out, the firewater and the other non-perishables wrote the song, because they were so bummed out about the truth and didn’t think there was anything they could do about it.”

Blu-ray bonus materials include:

-Four Featurettes:
“The Booth”
“The Great Beyond”
“The Pitch”
“Shock and Awe: How Did This Get Made?”
-Animation Imaginatorium
-Good Food Gag Reel
-Line-O-Rama

Digital bonus materials include*:

-Alternate Ending: The Real World Live Action
-The Real World: Inside The Alternate Ending
-Five Featurettes:
“The Booth”
“The Great Beyond”
“The Pitch”
“Animated Improv”
“Concept Art to Screen”
-Animation Imaginatorium
-Good Food Gag Reel
-Line-O-Rama

DVD bonus materials include:

-Animation Imaginatorium
-Three Featurettes:
“The Booth”
“The Great Beyond”
“The Pitch”

* Digital Extras available with select retailers