Bumped is a rip-off of a rip-off
Variety reports that Bridget Johnson has picked up Lizzy Weiss’s "original" screenplay, Bumped, and signed "McG protegé"(?) Anna Mastro to direct. Described as The Breakfast Club in an airport… and not realizing that just such a rip-off was already made, two years ago.
Sigh.
Why, Hollywood, why?
7 Comments so far
Leave a reply
Given the same description, I think Unaccompanied Minors does have something going for it that Bumped doesn’t… it is actually based on a true story.
Why? Because they can. When have they ever needed any more reason than that?
I don’t see how “Unaccompanied Minors” is like the Breakfast Club.
From the trailer it looks like a very standard ‘Kids annoying adults and having fun’ movie, and we’ve seen hundreds of those already.
If anything, it’s copying “Home Alone”.
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/unaccompanied_minors/
A number of the reviews compare it with Breakfast Club (and also Home Alone), with IGN’s review saying, “the character archetypes are straight out of The Breakfast Club — the princess, the weirdo, the preppy, the firebrand, et al.”
I’ve seen preview articles which had the producers self-describe the movie as that as well(UM I mean).
Ah, I stand corrected.
In his book Hard Core Roadshow, Noel S. Baker says that movie producers and execs always try to find reasons NOT to do a movie. They always have concerns. Yet, they have a budget to spend and a certain number of movies to make. If, in a given period, they receive ten really good scripts, but can only make two movies, then they’ll reject the other eight. If, during the following months, they get ten bad scripts, they still need to make two movies, so they’ll pick their two favorites. In essence, they don’t wait for the best script to come in. Often, they end up making the movie that they couldn’t find a reason not to do. It’s not because they wanted to - it’s because they needed to spend the money. They had to.
At least, that’s what I understood from Baker’s book.