From Diary to Movie of a Wimpy Kid

How often have you found yourself saying "they don't make them like they used to?  When I was a kid..."  Alright gramps, take a seat in your armchair and drink your warm glass of milk, everything's going to be OK.

For those who think this generation's kids movies are only geared towards the ADD-ridden, MTV-centric zeigeist, there is hope.  The producers of the upcoming comic adaptation Diary of a Wimpy Kid, aim for the stars, delivering something both kids and their familes can enjoy, and making it sound easy.  It helps when you name-drop all the write titles:

Matt Patches: Brad, how do you go from your past films like Boys Don't Cry and Party Monster to Wimpy Kid?

Brad Simpson: I worked in New York for years, loved things with distinctive voices, things that catch the zeitgeist, and then I moved out to Los Angeles to work with Leonardo DiCaprio and Marc Forster, and other people with unique taste.  And with a kid you start wanting to make a movie your kid can see, but I also, with this movie, wanted it to be distinctive.  It looks different then most kids films.

MP: How did you both get involved with bringing Wimpy Kid to the screen?

Nina Jacobson: I was shown the book and fell in love with the book.  It had already been published.  People had looked at it and most people had approached Jeff about television because of the fact that it's a diary, it's episodic.  And Jeff's [Kinney, the author] biggest concern was quality control, and he didn't feel like he could protect that with a series as well as with a movie.  We wanted to capture his voice but also make a movie that can be a movie, live on its own two feet and not just be an extension of the book.

BS: It's the first family movie I've done, a long way from Boys Don't Cry.  Although, both movies are about masculinity in America...but no, but I have a kid now and that has changed for me, and Nina Jacobson and I were working on a project and talking about how horrific middle school was.

MP: Thank you for helping me relive that pain all over again.

BS: Yeah, it's painful!  And there's lots of high school stuff out there, but that period which is an incredibly awkward, painful period for everyone...and she said she was talking to Fox about these books, and at that point the books had sold a million copies, but they weren't the phenomenon they are today. And in the year and a half we spent writing the script, the books went from selling a million copies to 30 million copies.

MP: I was about to say, it's really well shot, which is surprising for movies like this.

BS: We had a really visually-focused director [Thor Freudenthal] and Jack Greene who was Oscar-nominated for Unforgiven as our DP, and Monique Prudhomme for our costumes was nominated for an Oscar this year for the Terry Gilliam film [Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus].  We tried to...there's a sophistication to the books.  In the book, the author doesn't talk down to kids.  They're not patronizing, and we wanted to make a film in the same way.  We wanted to take kids seriously.

MP: Now we watched this film with a room of 8 million middle schoolers, but I was laughing right along with them.  Is there a strategy for making a film that plays for both kids and their parents?

NJ: Yes, in fact - which was taught to me by Jeffery Katzenberg when I worked at Dreamworks, as an executive.  The first time I worked on a kids movie was Antz and I was a little intimidated, and he said, "Don't make it for kids, make it for yourself.  We'll animate it and kids will go."  Make it to your standards, and if the subject matter is interesting the kids will go.  Kids are sophisticated, and parents don't want to feel like going to the movies with their kids is a trial.

BS: When we screened it for mix groups, there were definitely things parents were laughing at that kids don't.  When they hear the song "Total Eclipse of the Heart" or some of the other jokes happen...there are things in there that we put in for the parents laugh, and the kids see them and join in.

MP: The book has a real style to it, from the stick figure characters to the format.  How did you translate that to live action?

BS: Oh yeah, there were a couple things we knew.  We wanted to have the vibrant colors of the book, the colors of the covers.  That was something infused in the look throughout, in terms of wardrobe, etc.  We also wanted to incorporate animation.  A lot of kids wanted to see the stick figures move, so our director, who's an animator, and was able to go to animation easily, and there's the right amount of it in the movie.

NJ: And I thought Jeff Kinney's voice was extraordinary.  This notion of a young hero who was...we like to call him the Larry David of the middle school sect.  A likeable jerk, an unusual hero. 

MP: Were there any kids movies you went back to for inspiration?

BS: One of the movies we looked to was A Christmas Story, because it's a movie that is linked together...there's a narrative, but it links together a series of moments.  Christmas Story is a series of short stories, and in the book, there's all these incidents.  So we had to link them.  We also looked at a lot of adult comedies - Judd Apatow comedies, Superbad, things like that and what makes those things distinct and how can we make a version of that for kids.

MP: And then what's next for you?  Is the plan to stick with more kids oriented films?

NJ: I have pretty eclectic tastes, like the movie I have next is a book adaptation that is a romance for adults called One Day, which will be directed by Lone Scherfig, and that's a totally grown up movie.  But I have kids, and love making movies we can experience together.  I also have Hunger Games, which is based on a book which is coming up with Lionsgate.  The screenwriter is the author and she's writing the script right now. 

BS: I've got a project called World War Z, which is a zombie movie.  Matt Carnahan is writing the script, and we're waiting for a draft to come in.  Marc [Forster] has another project coming in called Machine Gun Preacher with Gerard Butler.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid is in theaters tomorrow.