I'm Internet-friends with the writer, Brian Lynch. He's hilarious. Some of the stuff he's done:
-He mostly does punch-ups for scripts that studios aren't sure are strong enough yet. One of his jokes made it into
Scary Movie 3 (although I haven't seen the movie, and I don't know what joke it is), and he did an uncredited re-write for
Robots. Also, there's a notoriously somewhat famous story about how he was hired to write a new
Winnie the Pooh movie, but was immediately let go when he tried to slip in the line "Tigger, please."
-He sold a script to the Henson company about ten years ago called
The Next Muppet Movie. The story follows Kermit as he tries to bring the Muppets back together as they go their separate ways and pursue new careers - Gonzo is the new James Bond, Miss Piggy as a talk show, Animal becomes a rapper, et cetera. Lynch is one of the biggest Muppet fans I know, and according to those who have read the script, it's a movie that's begging to be made. Unfortunately, it's been ten years since the script was bought and no movement has been made, so it's kinda silly to still think it could happen.
-He published a comic mini-series last year called
Spike: Asylum. It follows Spike, one of the most loved characters in the
Buffy the Vampir Slayer/
Angel universe, as he commits himself to an insane asylum and fights lots of monsters and stuff. It was really awesome, and it really felt like an episode of one of those two shows. Soon, a second series, called
Spike: Shadow Puppets will start coming out as well.
Spike: Asylum was such a hit that
Buffy the Vampire Slayer/
Angel creator Joss Whedon hired Lynch to write an
Angel season six series of sorts (the show lasted five seasons, and this comic will be a continuation of that). That's pretty damn cool, considering that when
Spike: Asylum first debuted in September, Whedon had never heard of Brian Lynch. And it's also cool considering that Whedon isn't too familiar with the comics based on his own creations.
Here's what Brian has to say, via his MySpace blog.
Thanks to everyone who had kind words about The Sims movie announcement. I really appreciate it. And I learned a little something this week. The first negative internet reaction to a movie you're working on stings a bit. But by the fourth or fifth, it's kinda funny. By the tenth it's pretty hilarious.
The thing that is really helpful is the simple fact that every single person besides myself, the folks at Fox, John Davis and EA have NO idea what the movie is about, so the internet's guesses, while funny, are completely wrong. As such, hearing people's guesses is my new favorite internet past time, replacing watching Will Ferrell fighting with his one year old landlord.
The fact that people are assuming the wrong thing about the plot of The Sims is understandable; if I heard they were making a movie about the game I'd also jump to conclusions. What IS weird is the fact that because Variety credited me as the writer of Scary Movie 3, every internet site is declaring me the writer of Scary Movie 3. Which, you know, would take a quick glance at my IMDb page to fact-check, but movie internet sites are too busy coming up with puns for their headlines to do so. I understand that too, as Variety said so it MUST be gospel truth, but whatever.
To set the record straight, I wrote jokes for Scary Movie 3. A lot of people did, uncredited. I was one of many. Some of jokes made it into the movie, most did not. I did not write Scary Movie 3. This MySpace blog has just become more factual than any movie news site on the web, which is kinda neat.
Anyway, The Sims has a great idea and will have a great script. Hopefully you all see the movie when it comes out and enjoy it.
So, basically, trust me when I say this isn't gonna be something that Fox is just churning out for a quick buck. This is gonna be a real movie with a real plot, and it's gonna be funny. I promise you.
