Is Josh Schwartz this generation’s John Hughes?
From the NYT earlier this week:
SHAKER HEIGHTS, Ohio — Josh Schwartz tried his best to appear calm and composed, but the look in his eyes betrayed him. He had never directed anything before — not a short, not an episode of television — yet there he was, making a movie for Paramount Pictures on location in this tony Cleveland suburb.
It was going, well, not great. Summer rain had delayed production. So instead of shooting four pages of the script over the next few hours, Mr. Schwartz, a TV writer and producer (“Gossip Girl,” “The O.C.”), had to burn through seven. There were missing extras, and one of his stars, Chelsea Handler, was being a bit of a handful.
“Maybe I can have a nervous breakdown and complete the scene for your article,” Mr. Schwartz said to a reporter, displaying his dry, self-deprecating humor. He cracked his neck, bending his head toward each shoulder.
Everything turned out fine, and the film, “Fun Size,” about a smart but disturbed teenager who loses her misfit younger brother on Halloween, is heading toward an October release. But the pressure is only mounting: Paramount is betting that Mr. Schwartz and his lower-profile but formidable business partner, Stephanie Savage, can deliver John Hughes-style hits (“Sixteen Candles,” “The Breakfast Club,” “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”) for a new generation.
There’s been much ado about the missing youth audience as a contributing factor to 2011’s lowest movie ticket sales since the mid-90s. Perhaps here is one big fat reason: Hollywood has forsaken the John Hughes tradition. Sure, there are TV series like “Gossip Girl” and “The O.C.,” but beyond Easy A, I’m hard pressed to dredge up any memorable Hughes-like teen film in the last few years.
Enter Schwartz and Savage:
In less than two years Fake Empire has delivered “Fun Size,” written by Max Werner (“The Colbert Report”) and starring Victoria Justice (Nickelodeon’s “Victorious”). The company has also advanced on eight other movies, including a remake of “Endless Love,” the 1981 Brooke Shields vehicle.
But most of its projects are original screenplays based on young-adult novels. One, “Au Revoir, Crazy European Chick,” is about a high school student whose family hosts an exchange student who turns out to be an assassin. Another, “The Luxe,” looks at four teenagers in fin de siècle New York — “Gossip Girl” meets “The Age of Innocence” meets “Moulin Rouge” — who are caught up in a murder mystery.
They certainly seem to understand some of the essential dynamics of teen movies:
“We love stories about identity and acceptance because they’re so universal,” Ms. Savage said, sitting with Mr. Schwartz in their offices on the Paramount lot. “Everybody feels like an outsider at some point in their lives.”
She added: “Coming-of-age stories in high school are exciting because everything that happens during that time is very heightened. The decisions feel like life and death. There’s this sensational narcissism, but you forgive it because teenagers are naïve.”
Identity. Outsider. Acceptance. And the heightened sense of life itself — experiences, opportunities, choices. Nobody understood this arena better and more consistently than John Hughes.
To wit: Can Josh Schwartz be this generation’s John Hughes?
I’d love for Schwartz and Savage to pull this off in movies as there’s a gaping hole for this type of content. With reasonable budgets, no-name talent hired on the basis of their actual acting ability, zero special effects, and — hopefully — well-drawn and compelling characters, these type of movies could contribute a vibrant dynamic to theatrical release slates to counteract the bloated, overblown summer superhero 3-D CGI-orgy fests.
What do you think? Can anybody hope to replicate even a small semblance of the success John Hughes achieved both as a storyteller and as a commercial success? Those of you who are fans of Schwartz’s work in TV, do you think that can translate into movies?
For more of the NYT article, go here.