Date Movie movie storyline. The twisted minds of two of the six writers of Scary Movie – Aaron Seltzer and Jason Friedberg – skewer the romantic comedy genre in Date Movie, a film for people who love Date Movies and people who hate them. The filmmakers’ goal, in their own words: “We wanted to create a romance that women will respond to and a balls-out comedy for the men in the audience.”
Seltzer and Friedberg tell the story of hopeless romantic Julia Jones, who has finally met the man of her dreams, the very British Grant Funkyerdoder. But before they can have their Big Fat Greek Wedding, they’ll have to Meet the Parents; hook-up withThe Wedding Planner, and contend with Grant’s friend Andy – a spectacularly beautiful woman who wants to put an end to her Best Friend’s Wedding.
For years, there have been comedies that poked fun at sports films, spy flicks and scary movies. But where, wondered Friedberg and Seltzer, was the romance?
The duo sold their first “spoof” screenplay, Spy Hard, just out of college, and a few years later they contributed to the screenplay for the box-office smash Scary Movie. Now, they’ve set their sights on the romantic comedy genre.
Friedberg lays out Date Movie’s classic template: “Homely girl next door becomes beautiful, meets a guy, brings him home, parents hate the guy and they go through all the required obstacles.”
As Seltzer tells it, “We selected memorable scenes from different romantic comedies and from that we created a story on which we could hang lots of spoofing.”
Their central character is Julia Jones. The moniker is a play on the names of superstar Julia Roberts and fictional character Bridget Jones, and it represents a blend of actor and character that audiences love to watch fall in love. Julia is the heart of Date Movie. “The one thing we know about Julia is that no matter how hard you try to keep her down, you can’t crush her spirit,” says Seltzer. “She believes in true love, and that’s the thing you hang your hat on.”
The filmmakers were determined to weave their myriad gags into a believable story. “Part of the challenge was making Date Movie as broad and silly as possible, because that’s where the comedy lives in a project like this,” explains producer Paul Schiff. “But at the same time, Aaron and Jason made the characters real, relatable and grounded so that you grow attached to them. They navigated a tricky balance between broad comedy and playing it straight.”
The filmmakers were careful to create those real moments. Says Friedberg, “We wanted audiences to be invested in the characters and become involved in the love story.”
But, as the filmmakers are quick to admit, the “funny” always came first. “We’re spoofing a laundry list of romantic comedies, movies of all shapes and sizes that are just ripe, fun targets for spoofing,” says Paul Schiff. “Date Movie presents romantic comedy conventions that audiences will really appreciate us skewering.”
The box-office smash My Big Fat Greek Wedding provided significant fodder for spoofing. In the 2002 film, Nia Vardalos’ traditional Greek parents insist that she marry a Greek. Similarly, Date Movie’s Julia Jones’ family provides major obstacles to her finding “Mr. Right.” Julia’s parents insist that she marry someone within their culture – no easy task because the Jones family takes multi-culturalism to a new level: Julia’s father is African-American, her mother is Indian, and her sister is Japanese. It’s impossible for Julia to please them all.
While Julia’s father wants her to marry his hand-picked suitor, she holds on to the ideal of true love. She finds it with Grant Funkyerdoder, whom the filmmakers named in honor of real-life actor Hugh Grant and fictional Meet the Fockers / Meet the Parents protagonist Greg Focker. The filmmakers also drew from Meet the Fockers by introducing the very British Grant Funkyerdoder’s American parents, Bernie and Roz – a riff on the characters played by Dustin Hoffman and Barbra Streisand in Meet the Fockers.
Before Julia finds true love with Grant, she consults a date doctor, Hitch, a nod to the 2005 comedy hit starring Will Smith. Hitch in turn hooks her up with a makeover that melds the popular reality shows “Pimp My Ride” and “Extreme Makeover.” Here, the writers take the standard homely-girl-becomes-attractive plot point, and turn it insideout. Julia is not someone who needs only to pluck her eyebrows, or lose the hooker getup to become the swan she really is. At 300 pounds, Julia needs a little bit more than that- and she gets it. “We just took the makeover process beyond the extreme,” explains Friedberg, “creating an exaggeration of the makeover montages from some poplar romantic comedies.”
Date Movie mined My Best Friend’s Wedding, for the stunning other woman/ex-fiancé character, Andy, played in this film by Sophie Monk. (In MBFW, Cameron Diaz played the archetypal ex-fiancé role.)
Friedberg and Seltzer also have fun with some of the genre’s sillier conventions, like the “slow-motion entrance.” Says Seltzer: “There are all those movies that have a scene in which a woman emerges from a pool in slow motion, and no one ever makes reference to the strangeness of that reduced speed. So, in Date Movie, we have our character wield a jack hammer, eat bananas and jump on a trampoline – everything that would be great to see a gorgeous woman do in slow motion. It’s sort of our ode to Phoebe Cates’ slow-motion pool scene in Fast Times at Ridgemont High.”
With the script completed, the filmmakers set about casting the eight principal characters and 50 speaking parts. The first step was finding their Julia Jones, a character they wrote with Alyson Hannigan in mind.
“Sometimes it helps writers to think of an actor and write in their voice, whether you end up casting them or not,” says Friedberg. “From the very beginning we saw Alyson Hannigan as Julia Jones, because Alyson is so sweet – women like her and guys want to marry her.”
When Seltzer and Friedberg approached Hannigan, she agreed to join the project. “I had never read a spoof comedy script before,” she notes, “but Date Movie was a great introduction to the genre. It was outrageous and fun. But it also had a lot of heart to it, which is what really appealed to me.”
With Hannigan on board, the filmmakers said Date Movie really began to come to life. “Alyson is a terrific actress with great comic timing,” says Seltzer. “I don’t think we truly understood the breadth of her talents until we started shooting. She never breaks character and never loses sight of Julia’s emotions.”
The filmmakers then turned their attention to casting Grant Funkyerdoder, the foppish, charming, fumbling British lad who captures Julia’s heart. “We auditioned hundreds of British actors to the point where we were really thinking of changing the part to an American,” Friedberg says. “Fortunately, we fell completely in love with Adam Campbell on his first reading.”
Campbell, who had just relocated to Los Angeles from the U.K., couldn’t believe his good fortune being cast in a major motion picture within months of his arrival stateside.
“I auditioned for the part about six weeks before I was told I got it,” Campbell says. “I remember getting the phone call on a Monday at about 6:20 PM. I genuinely didn’t believe it. I asked Aaron and Jason to call back to ensure that they actually meant to call me and not some other Adam Campbell. My agent assured me that was the case, but I made them phone me again, anyway.”
Sophie Monk portrays Grant’s ex-fiancé, Andy. The role called for an actress who was beautiful enough to intimidate Hannigan’s Julia and was willing to sometimes look completely foolish. Monk, a pop music icon in Australia and New Zealand, was more than up to the task.
“We saw every beautiful girl from here to New York,” says Seltzer. “We wanted someone new to films who would also get the comedy. Sophie walked in and dazzled us on both counts.”
“Sophie is really the villain of the piece,” adds Friedberg. “Without her the movie would fall apart. We wanted to cast a beautiful and intimidating actress. Sophie was all that and more. We tried not to invite our wives to the set.”
Monk’s singing talents came in handy for a scene in which the principal characters were required to sing the Bert Bacharach classic, “Say a Little Prayer” at the Jones’ family restaurant. Says Adam Campbell: “None of us had much singing experience – except for Sophie. That was quite intimidating. So we just tried to ignore her.”
With the actors making up the story’s love triangle in place, the filmmakers turned their attention to casting the families Jones and Funkyerdoder. Eddie Griffin might not seem like the obvious choice to portray Julia’s father, Frank Jones. But Griffin’s casting is all part of Date Movie’s off-kilter character design. Says Seltzer: “In early script drafts, Julia’s entire family was African-American. Then we changed it to being multi-cultural. Then we thought, What if only the father was African-American?
“Aaron and I were involved with Eddie in a different project years ago, so we had a good relationship with him,” Friedberg adds. “We called him and said, ‘We actually want you to play Alyson Hannigan’s father.’ He said, ‘I’m in.’”
“I’m the only black person in the film,” Griffin observes. “There’s a good chance, I’ll stand out.” Pointing to his character’s lush eyebrows, which look like a squirrel wearing a mink coat, Griffin adds, “With these eyebrows, I’m really standing out. I’m in 3-D right here.”
“Eddie’s eyebrows are definitely something to watch,” Hannigan notes. “I wouldn’t be shocked if he said he had a puppeteer under his wig or something because they are that impressive.”
Fred Willard and Jennifer Coolidge portray Grant’s parents, Bernie and Roz Funkyerdoder. Willard and Coolidge, long recognized for their improvisational work in several Christopher Guest films, had never played in a scene together prior to their work in Date Movie.
“We had gold with Fred and Jennifer,” Seltzer adds. “All we had to do was let them do what they do. It’s like conducting an orchestra with the best musicians on earth.”
While playing Roz, Coolidge seemed to manifest Barbra Streisand, whose performance and look in Meet the Fockers, inspired the Date Movie character. With the help of a wig made by the same person who provided Streisand’s wig for Meet the Fockers, Coolidge was able to lock into character. But she didn’t stop there. “The first day that she was in make-up and hair and sort of creating Barbra Streisand, Jennifer said, ‘I have to have a nose, get me a nose,’” relates Friedberg. “Aaron and I hadn’t even considered that – but it was a great idea that really worked for the character.”
Coolidge also came up with several colorful descriptions for what one can only assume are sexual positions, for a scene in which Roz offers advice to Julia’s mother on how to spice up her sex life. “Half of those were just off the top of her head, Jennifer just being brilliant,” Friedberg continues. “When we were shooting the scene, you couldn’t even hear behind the monitor because people were laughing so hard.”
Of all the movies and television shows roasted by Date Movie, only “The Bachelor” can claim to have its own host in on the joke. “I’ve seen spoofs of me on ‘Saturday Night Live,’ ‘Letterman,’ ‘Leno,’” says real-life “The Bachelor” host Chris Harrison. “I’ve been spoofed all over the place. So, it’s about time I get to make fun of myself for a change. Maybe the joke’s on me, but I kind of take it as an honor.”
Seltzer and Friedberg insist that this and all the spoofing in Date Movie are done in good fun. “We’re not against romantic comedies,” says Seltzer. “The ones we poke fun at are good movies. But sometimes they take themselves too seriously. And that’s where our work begins.”
Date Movie (2006)
Directed by: Aaron Seltzer
Starring: Alyson Hannigan, Adam Campbell, Fred Willard, Jennifer Coolidge, Eddie Griffin, Sophie Monk, Meera Simhan, Marie Matiko, Judah Friedlander, Carmen Electra, Valery M. Ortiz
Screenplay by: Jason Friedberg, Aaron Seltzer
Production Design by: William A. Elliott
Cinematography by: Shawn Maurer
Film Editing by: Paul Hirsch
Costume Design by: Alix Friedberg
Set Decoration by: Teresa Visinare
Art Direction by: Daniel A. Lomino
Music by: David Kitay
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for continuous crude and sexual humor, including language.
Distributed by: 20th Century Fox
Release Date: February 17, 2006
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