Explaining Hollywood, Part Four

SCENE: A STUDIO BIGWIG and his three JUNIOR EXECUTIVES sit at a table.

STUDIO BIGWIG: Gentlemen, I just wanted to give you your due. The Hottie and the Nottie will just barely break even without making a profit. Number one, your slate of Dane Cook romantic comedies for the next two years is awe-inspiring. Number two, your decision to cast Nicole Kidman in The Golden Compass and thus draw any element of human compassion out of the movie ended the threat of a Philip Pullman-based movie franchise. And number three… well, you kept number one from eating gravel that one time.
FIRST JUNIOR EXECUTIVE: I thought it was rock salt.
SECOND JUNIOR EXECUTIVE: Why would you want to eat rock salt?
FIRST JUNIOR EXECUTIVE: I wanted to eat something cubical.
THIRD JUNIOR EXECUTIVE: He did.
BIGWIG: Regardless, gentlemen, this is no time for us to rest on our laurels. We have to press forward and make enormous amounts of money without generating a profit on the books. And to this end, I have signed Mike Myers to a live-action movie deal.
(Silence.)
THIRD: The Shrek guy.
FIRST: Oh, him! I love it when he makes the ogre fart.
SECOND: Right, right. So what do we do with him?
BIGWIG: Myers has expressed interest in an idea he calls The Love Swami. In this, he plays a swami from India -
THIRD: Wait, Mike Myers is going to play a swami?
BIGWIG: Or something like that, yes.
THIRD: He’s not exactly… Indian-looking.
BIGWIG: Oh, good heavens. He’s not going to play an Indian. That would be racist.
THIRD: Good.
BIGWIG: Instead, he will play a white man who was raised in India and thus talks and acts funny just like an Indian would and plays up all the cultural stereotypes, but it’s not racist because we acknowledge that he’s white and therefore we’re embracing the wonderful diversity of the world.
FIRST: Remember what we learned in business school? “If your lead is white, then it’s all right.”
THIRD: What business school did you go to?
FIRST: I don’t remember the name, but we got free milkshakes every day and there was a clown.
THIRD: That sounds less like business school and more like working at a McDonald’s.
FIRST: Possibly!
SECOND: Getting back to Myers… so he’s a swami. Heh. That sounds dirty. “Love swami.”
(The BIGWIG eyes SECOND suspiciously.)
BIGWIG: You have a point. He is no longer a swami. He is now a guru.
SECOND: Aww…
BIGWIG: Anyway. He is a guru and he comes to America to teach Americans about guru things, and the Toronto Maple Leafs hire him to -
THIRD: Wait, wait. He comes to America and the Toronto Maple Leafs hire him for something?
BIGWIG: Yeah – Myers wants to use the Leafs in his movie, he’s a fan.
THIRD: But Toronto isn’t in America.
BIGWIG: What percentage of our target audience will both know that and care?
THIRD: Never mind.
BIGWIG: You’re learning. So, he comes to America and the Toronto Maple Leafs hire him to counsel one of their players. We will need a young, up-and-coming black actor -
THIRD: We’re getting a black actor to play a professional hockey player?
BIGWIG: Is this another “accuracy” thing?
THIRD: Well, technically it’s not wrong, since there are a few black hockey players. It’s just a bit odd. Most hockey players are, you know. White.
FIRST: That makes our movie even more not racist, then, because we’re making somebody who normally would be white instead be black!
SECOND: We’re challenging preconceptions!
FIRST: Shaking up the thought-box!
SECOND: Making waves!
FIRST: Confronting our inner Hamburglars!
BIGWIG: Precisely.
SECOND: Besides, if you have an athlete in a movie he usually has to be black, because black people are athletic.
THIRD: Oh, god.
BIGWIG: However, right now all I have for a proposal other than that basic idea is five pages of scribbling from Myers about how he wants to make his dead father proud of him by making the same sorts of comedy movies his dead father loved.
SECOND: Wow. Issues.
BIGWIG: The last page is just “I love you, Daddy” written over and over again. I think he may have been crying while he wrote it. So we need to flesh this movie out a bit more. Ideas?
FIRST: Mini-Me! We need Mini-Me!
THIRD: It’s not an Austin Powers movie.
FIRST: So what? We can throw Mini-Me -
THIRD: – Verne Troyer -
FIRST: – we can throw Mini-Me into the script and Myers can make a lot of jokes about Mini-Me being very short!
BIGWIG: Interesting. I like it. It does what has already been done many times, and I like doing things which have already made us a lot of money. We will hire him immediately. Next idea.
SECOND: This movie needs a love interest. The Love Guru needs somebody to fuck. Then we can make a lot of jokes about titties and erections.
BIGWIG: I am sure Mike Myers would like to make jokes about those things. Who can we get on short notice?
SECOND: Please. Jessica Alba. Please.
THIRD: She can’t act and has the comic timing of a dead frog.
SECOND: Yes, but she has a fantastic ass.
THIRD: But -
SECOND: Nobody’s going to go see this movie for the love interest! They’re going to go see a movie where Mike Myers, who is a giant schlump, gets to fuck Jessica Alba!
BIGWIG: Good reasoning.
SECOND: And then he comes on her face and calls her a dirty whore.
BIGWIG: I think we’ll skip that part.
SECOND: Aww…
THIRD: Oh, incidentally, Justin Timberlake’s agent called us last week; he’s interested in working on a silly comedy. This would seem to fit the bill. Should we call him and sign him?
BIGWIG: Very proactive of you! But what will he do in the movie?
FIRST: He can talk with a funny accent!
THIRD: Isn’t Mike Myers already going to be talking with an accent?
FIRST: Yes, I know, I meant a different funny accent. Wait, this is a movie about hockey and stuff, right?
THIRD: I lost track some time ago.
FIRST: So he can talk with a Quebec accent! He can say things like “tabernac,” and we can give him a 70s porn moustache because everybody in Quebec has one of those.
BIGWIG: Do they?
FIRST: That’s what my mother told me.
BIGWIG: Well, I’m sure she wouldn’t lie. But a funny accent is only a start. We also need to give him a comedic shtick.
SECOND: …he has a giant cock!
THIRD: He has a giant cock. This is funny.
SECOND: Yes!
BIGWIG: Maybe we can work on it a bit, but it’s not the worst comedic hook I’ve ever heard.
SECOND: Then he fucks Jessica Alba and calls her a dirty whore.
THIRD: What the hell is your problem?
SECOND: I just like prostitutes.
BIGWIG: Regardless. Gentlemen, i think we have the concept wrapped up here. I’ll send it down to the writers and we’ll get this thing done.
FIRST: Hooray! Time for rock salt!
THIRD: …that’s gravel again.