“Love” Finds Larry Doyle

The "Beth Cooper" scribe on misleading marketing, high school and talking smack about Danny DeVito.

I didn’t realize that it did so poorly — I always make the naïve assumption that critical success will carry a film through.

What’s really interesting is if you watch the trailer and then watch the movie — this again being the comedy snob in me — in the trailer, there are a bunch of essentially hacky jokes. And what you realize when you’re watching the movie is that Greg didn’t really do them that way. You know, Greg was the original director on “Duplex.”

I noticed that — what happened?

At some point, the powers that be felt uncomfortable with him. And [it was] probably the single worst decision that was made on that movie. Well, no, the worst one was hiring Danny DeVito, but that was created by firing Greg. Greg would have done a wonderful job.

And it was some neurotic executive whim?

It was six weeks before shooting! It wasn’t a whim, I think it was anxiety-driven. I was never, as the writer, given the full story, and it’s probably not worth getting into. Although I’ll trash Danny all you want.

There’s stuff in the “Beth Cooper” trailer, by the way, that does not play out the way it does in the movie and as such sort of mis-describes the movie in ways that I don’t particularly like and I don’t think are helpful.

Such as?

A few things in there are just hacky comedy shit, like when he says “I love you, Beth Cooper,” there’s a ratchet shot in on Hayden [Panettiere], and don’t they even do a needle drop? I think they do. That’s not in the movie. And they took this out because I objected, but in the original trailer, when the girls get out of the car, they did Yello’s “Oh Yeah.” We were making fun of using “Oh Yeah” on the “The Simpsons” ten years ago! One of the things that bugs me about the trailer is that it gives the impression that he says “I love you” and she decides to take him on the night of his life. And that’s not what happens. It’s not “Something Wild.”

That seems like the trailer for “Humpday” — it pitches a comedy because that was its best marketing angle, but the film isn’t built like a comedy, and it raises the question of whether its better to attract a large audience who’ll feel somewhat misled by the actual film, or attract the smaller audience who’ll be drawn to a more accurate reflection of what the film actually is.

I feel like with “Adventureland” they made that mistake. They tried to make it seem like a different kind of comedy and so a lot of the people who would have otherwise gone to it probably stayed away. And God knows the movie didn’t last long enough that they could have heard about it. And probably some of the people who went to see it felt burned, because they wanted a broader, dumber something or other.

And the word of mouth was soured.

Yeah. From the marketing people’s point of view, “Superbad” is the sweet spot of what they want to get people to go and see, but you still have to deal with the fact that people are going to see the movie that is. I think a lot of people, including some adults, could really enjoy “Beth Cooper,” and I don’t think that it’s necessarily a great idea to try to make the people go in thinking they’re going to see, you know, “License to Drive 2.”

Was there a “License to Drive 2”?

God, you know, there probably was. Or the Coreys are probably trying.

It’s still in development.

“We wrote a script — it’s only three pages long, but it’s great!”

It’s got an arc! So the idea for “I Love You, Beth Cooper” literally came to you in a dream?

I had a dream where I gave a speech and said that! And I became very intrigued by the repercussions of doing something like that.

Are high school dreams common for you? Do you still have them?

I don’t usually dream about high school, I dream about college. And maybe it’s just because I had more drama in college than I did in high school.

Why is that?

Because I didn’t have my parents around and I fucked up a lot more. I basically didn’t do anything in high school, thinking that no one else was really doing anything either. Then I came back a couple years later and talked to people and was like, “You were all fucking?!?”

Would you agree with the idea that show business is basically high school with money?

Much like when I was in my own high school, I was so far out of that competition that I couldn’t really tell. I’m not even standing against the wall, looking at the popular kids dancing, so I don’t get into situations where I’m reminded over and over again that I’m not of the appropriate status. I know I’ve told a couple of funny stories about that happening, but even in L.A., I wasn’t thinking about going to lunch at the Ivy and what table they’d put me at. I just didn’t do that; most writers don’t. So, I hear it is like high school with money, but I don’t know. I must be home-schooled.

“I Love You, Beth Cooper” opens in wide release on July 10th.

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