Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer are an enigmatic pair, to say the least. The writers/directors, who got their start with the “Scary Movie” franchise before going on to make the hits “Date Movie,” “Epic Movie” and “Meet the Spartans” and “Disaster Movie,” rarely give interviews, or give any kind of insight into their working process. Fortunately, with the upcoming release of “Twilight” spoof “Vampires Suck” on August 18th, the pair agreed to give The Playlist an exclusive peek into a day in the lives of Friedberg/Seltzer. You can watch the trailer below. [Movieline]
6:00am – The pair wake up in their adjoining mansions in the Hollywood hills. Seltzer sleeps on a mattress made of solid gold, Friedberg sleeps on the broken dreams of Tony Cox.
7:00am – Breakfasting together. Over breakfast, they’ll often leaf through Variety in order to pick a popular movie genre that they can parody, making sure that, by the time that the film is released, every possible joke will have already been made about it.
8:00am – Three hours of yoga.
11:00am – The pair take an issue of Entertainment Weekly and separate the pages. They shuffle the pages, making sure to note the main focus of each page in a red crayon on the back of a napkin; “Twilight,” Lady Gaga, “Glee,” Susan Boyle, Justin Bieber, “Avatar.” This is then stapled together, and sent to studio executives as the treatment for their untitled new comedy.
11:25am – The pair realize they’ve forgotten to title the project! How embarrassing! Seltzer calls up his 7-year-old nephew, who, fortunately, comes through again. “Vampires Suck” it is.
12:30pm – The pair are about to sit down to write, but first they must prepare themselves — giving each other minor brain damage with iron bars, in order to simulate the mindset of their audience.
12:35pm – Writing the script begins. A sample exchange; “Did you see “Alice in Wonderland?” “No” “Me, neither” “Doesn’t she go down a hole? Is she British?” “I don’t know” ‘Let’s put that in.” “Yeah, because when people will see her, they’ll be like ‘Oh, hey, I saw Alice in Wonderland'” “Yeah.”
12:40am – Friedberg pitches an idea that makes Seltzer laugh, and is forced to stand outside for ten minutes. He returns with a written apology.
12:55pm – Money fight!
1:30pm – The script complete, the pair break for lunch. In order to hide the simmering tensions and resentments building up in their partnership, they go to different branches of Subway. On his way back, Seltzer pushes a child over. Just because he can.
2:30pm – The actors arrive. Many are from the traditional Friedberg/Seltzer rep company, who met when the pair directed Chekov’s “Ivanov” at the National Theatre in London. Others are more established names who’ve taken a role because they relished the chance to work with the auteurs, and because they got in a little too deep with the bookies, and now they’re making threats, and “I just don’t know what to do honey, they said they’d cut my face, and that’s my livelihood, how am I going to work with a scar, I know it’s awful but it’s the only thing I’m being offered, come on honey we’ve got to do it don’t cry baby, why are you crying?”
3:45pm – Another money fight! (The actors are not permitted to attend, except for Ken Jeong, who wears a jester hat, and plays a lute to accompany it)
5:15pm – Filming, which is done in real time, wraps. The pair have given each other gifts; Seltzer gets a framed picture of Brett Ratner, Friedberg a Season 3 “Entourage” boxset.
5:30pm – Unfortunately, we can’t print what goes on at the wrap party, as the civil case is still ongoing. Nevertheless, several witnesses maintain that they never saw the girl go into the house in the first place.
11:00pm – The pair retire to their separate properties. Friedberg does a few hours work on his passion project, a novel, currently standing at 800 pages, about a screenwriter who manages to stand up to his writing partner for once in his goddamn life. Seltzer stares vacantly at the drawer he keeps his gun in, remembering the first time he saw “The 400 Blows.”