Publish Your Comment said...I read their book a month ago for two reasons: 1) I love screenwriting books. 2) I hate those guys, don't understand their success, and wanted to see what they had to say for themselves.
With the references to Reno 911, Taxi and Herbie I take it you're familiar with Thomas Lennon and Ben Garant (in fairness you should have tossed in the Night at the Museum movies which have grossed > 1 billion dollars). What's your take on their latest tome Writing Movies for Fun and Profit?
Thomas Lennon and Ben Garant are probably best known for starring in "Reno 911" on Comedy Central. They also did a sketch show on MTV called "The State" that people pretend to like.
Also, Thomas Lennon gets a lot of "best friend" roles in movies these days, like in "17 Again" and "I Love You, Man". He played the guy who died of autoerotic asphyxiation in "Cedar Rapids".
Meanwhile he and Garant have huge, I mean, enormous, careers as screenwriters. They get just about every comedy movie writing job, and also sell TV pilots every year.
Now, you'd think with this free pass to do whatever they want, they'd have an amazing track record. Let's take a look:
Their first foray into screenwriting was...
"Taxi" (2004) starring Jimmy Fallon and Queen Latifah.
This is better known as the movie that murdered Jimmy Fallon's acting career. It starred Giselle Bundchen as a criminal mastermind. It is one of the worst movies in recent years and used frequently as a punchline.
They followed that up with...
"The Pacifier" (2005) starring Vin Diesel.
Here's what Richard Roeper had to say about it: "It's so awful. This reminds me, every once in a while on television they'll show failed sitcom pilots that never got picked up by the networks, and this has the feel of something like that."
Wow. O for 2. Okay, well maybe the third time is the charm...
"Herbie Fully Loaded" (2005) starring Lindsay Lohan.
The movie that killed Lindsay Lohan's career, well, along with crack cocaine and lesbianism. Seriously? Herbie Fully Fucking Loaded?
The craziest part about this is, this wasn't even a studio assignment. They went to the studio and said "we want to do a Herbie remake".
Maybe the fourth time is the charm...
"Let's Go to Prison" (2006) starring Dax Shepard and Wil Arnett. And I use the word "starring" very loosely.
Jesus.
After all of this, they were still in high demand. And that's when they finally got their hit...
"Night at the Museum" (2006) starring Ben Stiller.
This movie made craploads of money. Just insane amounts of money. Was it good? I don't know anyone that would claim that. But families went to see it, so there you go.
That's 1 for 5, and even the one is debatable, it owed much of its success to Ben Stiller and special effects.
And they took this giant hit and churned out two more brilliant scripts in 2007...
"Reno 911" Miami" starring themselves.
"Balls of Fury" starring Dan Fogler. (BLOGGER'S NOTE: Dan Fogler is a short fat guy who Hollywood predicted would be the next Jack Black, and then he starred in a movie written by Thomas Lennon and Ben Garant and was never heard from again)
The fact that these guys are multi, multi-millionaires is the exact reason why everyone in Los Angeles writes screenplays.
So they wrote a book about screenwriting. And it's the weirdest screenwriting book I've ever read. Why? Because it is not written for beginners. All of their advice seems to be for writers who have already sold a feature, if not multiple features.
Most people would assume writers at that level don't really need advice.
There are no helpful instructions on actually writing a script. It's just like, yeah, make sure it's in the proper format, whip out 3 acts, and then you sell it for tons of cash! That's it.
But there are some interesting nuggets about dealing with producers and the studio, and getting notes, doing rewrites - stuff that you don't hear about that much. I also liked that they wrote in a very informal style. Typically in screenwriting books, it's in a very high brow, non-approachable way that is difficult to put into practice when you're actually sitting down to write.
These guys are somewhat funny, and you know that they are the real deal. They are doing it. So it's kinda cool to hear about what is going on in the business now. They are not some dude you've never heard of telling you that "Witness" has the greatest structure in movie history.
There is also some good insight into how some of their many failures happened. I know as well as anyone how easy it is to be involved in something that turns to shit. I completely get it, and it happened to me. But at a certain point, with all of the chances these guys have had, where is the proof that they are good?
Look at the South Park guys. Their TV show is well respected and very popular. They did a movie, a movie that starred puppets!, and it is well respected and very popular. Now they're doing a Broadway show, and it won every award and is a huge hit. They are great, and they have the shit to prove it.
Why don't these guys have one thing that demonstrates what they can do? Yeah, Reno 911 is an okay show, I guess. But it's sort of improv. And Night at the Museum and the sequel raked it in, but is that a movie anyone in the comedy or film world looks back fondly on?
It just goes to show once again that the reason why it is so difficult to break in the movie writing loop is that when you finally do get in, and you know how to play the game, it's very difficult to be kicked out.
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