royalsandcelebs

I went to the AV Club website recently (which is the straight-forward entertainment section for the satirical newspaper “The Onion”) and saw the trailer for something called “Disaster Movie.”  It’s by those same wonderful guys who made “Date Movie,” “Epic Movie,” and the “Meet the Spartans,” which isn’t called “Action Movie,” for some reason.  I didn’t see any other listing for the film (loose term there) “Action Movie”, so I’m not sure why they didn’t use it.  Maybe some genius in Hollywood had the term copywritten, and when somebody uses it, BAM, he sues!  Sounds like a pretty smart idea.  Someone could make, like, two, three figures a year doing that.

Here’s what I gathered concerning the plot for their new movie, titled “Disaster Movie”: a bunch of characters that were popular in other movies get crushed to death by things.  And not just any movie characters–recent movie characters.  See, because that’s what comedy is–comedy is current.  If I saw a movie where, say, Russel Crowe from Gladiator gets crushed to death by a giant cow that falls out of the sky for some unexplained reason, I wouldn’t laugh.  “Gladiator?” I would ask.  “I haven’t seen Gladiator since I was in high school.  That’s not funny at all!”  But let’s say, hypothetically, if, oh, I don’t know,… if Iron Man (from the film Iron Man) gets crushed to deah by a giant cow that falls out of the sky for some unexplained reason, you couldn’t get me to stop laughing.  “Iron Man!” I would not ask but exclaim.  “I just saw that movie!  That movie was very entertaining and I remember seeing the commercials for it!  That’s hilarious!”  Current.  Funny.

This apparently goes on and on with characters we’ve just seen in movies.  The “Enchanted” lady gets hit by a car; “Hannah Montana” gets hit by a rock; “The Hulk” loses his pants; “Juno” and “Sex in the City Lady” fight,… or something.  Those are all popular now, and they are in embarrassing/horribly violent situations!  Current!

Even though none of these characters were in films that you would call “Disaster Movies,” they’re still being roasted here.  That’s the beauty with this system.  There are some rules you have to follow, and other rules that you don’t.  Ordinarily, one of the movie rules is to have things kind of, sort of make sense.  Well, you can just throw that rule out entirely!  Bring on the falling cows!  Cows are funny!  They are really fat and they moo!  Why do you think the word “Moo-moo” is so funny?  Cows, that’s why!

Another rule that you needn’t need to follow is a story, which can be quite difficult and mind-bending to come up with.  First, something interesting happens to interesting people in an interesting place, and then that leads to something else of worth, and people change, and grow, and blah blah blah blah blah.  Development is boring.  Again, just have random stuff happen.  That’s so much easier.  The lady from Enchanted shows up for 5 seconds, and a taxicab strikes her dead.  Done!  Next scene!

Now to the rules you must follow: the character must be in a popular movie from, at the earliest, this time last year.  It has to, has to, HAS TO still be on the new release wall at Blockbuster when the film is released (sorry, “The Departed”–you are played out!).  Also, the film must have been a commercial success.  I mean, if the film didn’t make $100 million dollars, how are we the audience supposed to know who the cow from the sky is splattering?  If a cow splatters the Tom Waits character from “Wristcutters,” that’s not going to be funny.  After all, cows DO NOT come from the sky and squash characters from independent films.  That’s neither funny nor believable.  And finally, at least half the characters half to be smashed by something.  This is where it becomes a little tricky, because not every situation has an abundance of blunt objects, waiting to plummet.  That’s where the true talent comes in. 

Say, you’ve written a dynamite scene where, um, where Batman is at US Bank, and he’s got a check endorsed by UMB Bank.  He gets to the front of the line and tries to cash the check.  The teller says, “I’m sorry, Batman, but unfortunately we can’t cash that check,” and then, um, and then Batman says, “Look, lady, I just talked to my Personal Banker and he said I could.  I’d like to speak to the bank president.”  Now, I know what you’re thinking: there’s no way Batman could get squashed by something.  It seems highly unlikely and improbable for this hilarious consequence to occur.  You, the writer, are probably thinking “Well, maybe if I talk about some large cracks in the ceiling or animals breaking out of the zoo, it’s possible to…” Ah ah ah!  Not so fast!  All of that dialogue and exposition interrupts valuable smashing time!  Simple solution?  Have a rhinocerous fall on Batman’s head.  No explanation, no rhyme or reason, no time wasted on some semblance of a plot.  End scene.

It’s a pretty simple plan, and… here’s the best part… they make a lot of money!  Wheeeeeeeeeeee!  Loads!  The first film in this series, titled “Date Movie”, only made $84.4 million dollars internationally.  Okay.  Okay.  Not so bad, especially when you consider the movie had a $20 million dollar budget.  So, the movie with a dwarf dressed like Yoda and some guy in a “Vote for Pedro” T-shirt and a really hot girl who pretended to be fat, or something, made a profit of nearly $65 million dollars.  That’s good.  Next came “Epic Movie,” which made about the same $84 million dollars internationally and cost about $20 million.  Good $65 million net for the studio there, and all they had to pay for was some guy who impersonated Johnny Depp and dressing Crispin Glover like, um, Johnny Depp (Johnny Depp was more popular and current at the time, hence the references).  This financial success ensured another film, this one called “Meet the Spartans,” which was like 300, except it was a comedy,… and they didn’t really have a reason for fighting… and there was a parody of the “Leave Britney alone” guy… on a small computer screen that could walk… and it starred Carmen Electra and that guy from “Hercules” (I could keep going).  While this film cost more to make ($30 million dollar budget), it still grossed about $84 million, which is a good, healthy profit of over $50 million dollars. 

Do you know what you get called after three of your movies in a row make $84 million dollars each?  A proven commodity.  That means they get to make more of them.  And, because they’re so cheap and don’t have to worry about plotting or, you know, logic, they get made quicker… and quicker… and quicker… until one day, you turn around, and there’s an Amy Winehouse impersonator on your TV screen, snorting coke, and she gets crushed to death by “Kung Fu Panda.”

So here’s what I’m going to do: I’m going to write a movie called, oh, let’s say, “Family Friendly Robot Movie,” because that movie WALL*E made a lot of money.  I’m going to next write a bunch of situations where popular characters show up for a second and then get smashed by, like, a pterydactal or something.  Ordinarily, I would structure a plot at this point, but thank God for these rules!  I hate thinking out consequences and reactions so much!  Anyways, I’ll have a robot, named MILE*EE (because Miley Cyrus is popular and they’re apparently working on a movie).  That’s a popular character, and I’ll make her a robot, just like in that show “Small Wonder” (but I won’t reference that TV show, because that was on in the 80s, and I don’t want my audience to have to remember things).  And, um,… yeah, let’s have Amy Winehouse (currently popular for her downward spiral) walking out of rehab (because her song was about that), smoking a cigarette (because she did that a week ago), and having a large crate of Milk Duds from the sky crush her to death (because that is a joke).  Then, let’s do… let’s have The Mummy from “Mummy 3″ get hit by a windmill, Dwight from “The Office” get eaten by a 80 foot walrus, and Seth Rogan (he’ll probably be in a hit Judd Apatow movie) fart into outer space and explode.

And that’s how I earned my first $84 million.

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