Screenwriting : Comedy is BACK! by Geoffroy Faugerolas

Geoffroy Faugerolas

Comedy is BACK!

Had a good call with a literary manager who told me comedies and action comedies are making a come back. More and more buyers and producers are coming to them for high-concept features that mix physical comedy and a strong hook you can pitch in 5 seconds. The type of comedies we use to watch in the 90s and early 2000s. Exciting, isn't it? Paramount recently green lit two comedies in that vein. More studios are following through.

With that in mind, do you have a script that would fit that mandate? If so, what's the logline? Who would be your top casting choice?

Maurice Vaughan

That's great to hear, Geoffroy Faugerolas! Thanks for the info. I have some script ideas that fit that mandate. I need to write the loglines.

Banafsheh Esmailzadeh

I hope Finding Elpis has a chance, then, even though it's not a strict comedy (but definitely has the 90s/2000s feel) but has comedy in it. The logline is: A struggling rock band finds out that they're actually the galaxy's favourite band and are tasked with touring different planets. I definitely have some of its table read actors in mind for casting, but for its eventual Japanese dub I hope to get someone like Mamoru Miyano in on it, maybe even Hidenari Ugaki.

Darrell Pennington

Logline: “An older stoner guides her traditional family through non-traditional

times and confronts the untimely death of a close friend by seeking reinvention in the most unlikely of places, OnlyFans.”

Casting for lead - Leslie Mann or Kristen Wiig

Cast for co-lead - Jason Segal or Wheeler Walker Jr

Geoffroy Faugerolas

Banafsheh Esmailzadeh such a fun concept. Projects with potential for music crossovers are huge these days.

Geoffroy Faugerolas

Darrell Pennington Yes! We need a Wiig/Segal team up.

Darrell Pennington

I can see it in my mind - both have the comedy chops and can be sensitive to the potentially touchy subjects with both grace and gravitas. Wheeler Walker Jr would likely be considered a stretch but he has the absolutely perfect look and his persona shows he has the ability to step into a character full force.

Banafsheh Esmailzadeh

Thank you Geoffroy Faugerolas, yeah, I consider myself a music addict so this project is very near and dear to my heart and now that I'm rewriting the second entry to include more music elements (it was notably absent in the first draft other than recurring performances of "Der Einsamer Hirte" lol), I'm even more fired up. In that vein I don't know which band I'd want to provide Elpis's music since they're partly inspired by Mägo de Oz but chances are there aren't many rock bands here that have a violinist among them. I guess I'll leave that to whoever's in charge of casting/music lol :D

Matthew Brozik

After a banished royal jester tumbles upon a nefarious plot, he returns to prevent the dethroning of his benevolent king by a humorless tyrant.

FOOL

DonnaMarie Miller

I have a comedy drama The Broken Spoke. The true story of a famous American honky-tonk that began as a humble drinking hole in Austin and slowly rose into a cultural landmark of country music history through love, loss and resilience. I see it as a mashup of the Beverly Hillbillies and Urban Cowboy.

Jim Boston

Geoffroy, I've got a comedy called "Pushing the Envelope."

In that one, a psychology major and a film buff put their University of Oklahoma sorority on the line in an effort to determine if "Animal House" antics fly in today's campus climate.

"Okay, Jim...what else have you got?"

Well, in Stage 32's recent Representation Pitch Fest, I sent Michael Enright a plug for "Bleeding Gums." (And that was only because of Michael's association with "Whiplash.")

"Bleeding Gums'" logline goes like this: A math teacher at an all-girls' high school in present-day Omaha, NE seeks to fill a void in her school's activities by forming its first jazz band. (There's some "School of Rock" in it...but at first, I saw "Gums" as a mashup of "Mr. Holland's Opus," "Troop Beverly Hills," and a Japanese film called "Swing Girls.")

By the way...I thought Ariel Winter and Sami Isler would make great lead characters in "PTE," and I had Crystal Bernard in mind as the math teacher in "Bleeding Gums."

Thanks bunches for the heads-up!

Vladimir Romantsev

Title: MY FAVORITE NEIGHBORS

Logline: When a young couple in a quiet suburb wins the lottery but refuses to share their fortune, their seemingly friendly neighbors each hatch devious schemes to rob the couple they once called their favorite neighbors. Zac Efron + Karl Urban + Jack Quaid + Seth Rogen + Jake Gyllenhaal

Deriq Carr

Title: BEST BUDS

Logline: (Buddy comedy angle): "Two stoner engineers team up with their rebellious android creation for a Jamaican smuggling operation that goes hilariously wrong."

Casting Ideas:The Engineers:

Thomas Middleditch & Kumail Nanjiani - Silicon Valley tech comedy experience

The Android (Voice/Motion Capture):

Aubrey Plaza - Perfect for deadpan, sarcastic AI attitude

Supporting characters

Craig Robinson or Keegan-Michael Key as Jamaican contact Nick Offerman or J.K. Simmons as authority figure/antagonist

Arthur Charpentier

GLASS CEILING

By Arthur Charpentier

GENRE: Romance, Comedy

LOGLINE:

An experienced brand manager girl, in order to get a promotion in a company with patriarchal views on management, must defeat a rival man who by chance happened to be her partner in Latin American dancing.

Arthur Charpentier

SANTA'S DELIVERY

By Arthur Charpentier

GENRE: Comedy

LOGLINE:

When two teenage bullies try to rob Santa Claus, he turns them into snowmen. Now the heroes must fulfill the norm of delivering gifts to children in order to return their human bodies and not melt after the holiday.

Arthur Charpentier

AGENCY MODELS-ZOMBIE

By Arthur Charpentier

GENRE: Fantasy, Comedy

LOGLINE: After signing with a zombie model agency, a live girl who dreams of becoming a supermodel fights for her life against colleagues and a mysterious killer so she won’t have to work forever as a zombie.

Vladimir Romantsev

Logline: An aging detective and a sassy stripper accidentally swap bodies and are forced to investigate a serial killer who targets only strippers — and now hunts the detective in a woman’s body : )

Freyja Seren (she/her)

MARTHA'S VINEYARD

Genre: Dramedy

Logline: Martha had seen it all, or so she thought. But when the retired math teacher is confronted by one of her old students she has to make a life or death choice. Can this old dog learn new tricks? Or does she still have a lesson to teach the younger generation?

Christopher Cote

That gives me a lot of faith in my project. It's a blend of myth, heart, and comedy mixed with action so, very glad to hear this.

Thomas Wood

Geoff, amazing to see you here after Coverfly. I was just looking through our back and forth emails, trying to figure out where you might have landed, only to see you here. Let's reconnect!

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