Taking his comedy from cubicle to factory floor

Mike Judge planned to step out of the office only briefly. Instead, he disappeared from his desk for a decade.

Back in 1999, Judge - the creator of such immortal animated characters as Beavis, Butt-head and Hank Hill - attempted his first live-action feature film, based on his own workplace experience.

Judge's hot streak suddenly came to a halt: His cubicle-life comedy Office Space - given little hype or studio "flair" - flopped at the box office, prompting Fox execs to tell him, in effect: You're talented, but maybe this live-action comedy stuff isn't quite your thing.

Bummed, Judge shelved his prospective follow-up film - Extract, another workplace comedy, but one that traded in the white collars for blue. "I was already writing Extract when Office Space came out," he recalls.

But a funny thing happened on the way back to the animation studio: Slowly, fans turned Office Space into a hit, as Milton, Lumbergh and the Bobs became increasingly noted and quoted. Judge was redeemed. And the long-mothballed Extract finally hits theaters on Friday.

During the Office Space shoot, Judge says, "I thought: 'I was born to do this.' But when it came out and didn't do so well, I thought: 'I was born to do something that no one wants to see.' "

Now, as Extract star Mila Kunis says of the celebrated office satire, "it gets better every time you watch it."

That success finally brought the filmmaker back to the workplace, with his factory-set comedy that also stars Jason Bateman and Ben Affleck.

"I think of Extract almost as a companion piece to Office Space," says the filmmaker, speaking a couple of days after the new movie's red-carpet premiere in Austin, Texas.

Thanks largely to Office Space, Kunis needed no prodding to work with Judge. "I've been a fan of his for a long time," says Kunis, the former That '70s Show actress. "We have a similar sense of humor - very dry."

Extract returns Judge, who in 2006 came out with the broader social satire Idiocracy, to a genre in which he became comfortable and confident.

"I feel like in the blue-collar factory setting, there's the same kind of recognizable but unique characters in that world as in cubicles," the filmmaker says. "A friend of mine was working in a parts warehouse. . . . He said there was a woman, 65 years old, sitting on a stool wearing a Tweety Bird T-shirt and a fanny pack. And I said, 'I've seen that exact same type of worker.' "

In the new film, Bateman plays the owner of a flavor-extract company who is led astray by both his "spiritualist" pusher-bartender Dean (played by Affleck), and the new hire who puts the "temp" in temptress, Cindy (Kunis).

Judge, who graduated with a physics degree from the University of California at San Diego, logged time in a factory himself, working on guitar amps in Northern California. He long thought it was fertile terrain for spoofing.

Having sat on it for a decade, however, Judge, 46, seemed to alter his perspective. Now, instead of skewering management and corporate owners, Judge is more sympathetic to the trials and confabulations of the boss.

"This is a workplace comedy from the boss' point of view," Judge says. "After Beavis and Butt-head took off and I suddenly was running a show, I could relate more to what a boss goes through."

With Office Space, the "Take This Job and Shove It" attitude is overtly humorous. Extract is often subtler, drier, which is why Judge sought Bateman: "I didn't want somebody to be overreacting and making it too silly and stupid." Bateman's satiric delivery can be as dry as vermouth.

In returning to workplace humor, Judge found that the joy of filmmaking - the feeling he had during Office Space - was recaptured. "Things become funner as they go along," says Judge, whose King of the Hill ends its 12-year run in September. "I'm getting back to what I was doing with Office Space. I just could keep going with this - when everything is working."

With Office Space and Extract, "I think casting is 80 percent of the battle, and we got people who understand the purpose of each scene," says Judge, who values his actors' improvisations. The cast appreciates being allowed to have input.

"What makes him great is that he's not married to his dialogue," Kunis says. "He makes you feel you can do your version. He hires people that he trusts and lets you take the rein. He's one of a kind."

Judge has warm feelings toward the entire blue-collar world. "I think when it's something like a [factory] company of that size - I think 75 people or so, and the boss is right there - you can go complain to that boss. . . . It's a more healthy workplace than a bunch of shareholders and corporate owners in a different town. That's a more soul-sucking environment."

Bateman said during the Extract panel at San Diego Comic-Con last month that he'd love to see Judge form a Christopher Guest-like troupe to crank out one of these every 18 months."

"I don't know about every 18 months," Judge says now, laughing at that prospect. "I'd love to do it, but maybe every 21/2 years."

Sold. Judge's fans would prefer that to having to wait another entire decade for him to get back to his desk.