'House Bunny' Writers Recall Weinstein Fart Directives and Other Hollywood Dues-PayingWe hope you got a kick out of Sunday's profile of Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith, the screenwriters behind last weekend's highest-grossing new release The House Bunny, as well as previous hits 10 Things I Hate About You, Legally Blonde and She's the Man. Now the two are moving into producing, adaptations and will soon have an ABC series loosely based on their lives — another long stride in their champagne-soaked march toward world conquest. But what more should viewers at home expect from the personal stories of perhaps the most successful writing duo on Earth without a Y-chromosome between them? After the jump, The NY Times tips off a few more key secrets of Being Lutz and Smith:
Ms. Smith is curly-haired and petite and wore a festive black-and-white print dress to lunch; Ms. McCullah Lutz, in a form-fitting turquoise dress, suggested a blonde Valkyrie. Ms. McCullah Lutz seemed more serious, Ms. Smith more bubbly. But they said the key to their personalities is in their dogs: Ms. McCullah Lutz owns a Maltese; Ms. Smith, pit bulls. ... Their M.O. consists of writing beside Ms. McCullah Lutz’s pool (both live in neighborhoods on the funkier east side of Hollywood) and presenting a united front to those studio executives who would tamper with their work. But sometimes, they conceded, the questions can lead somewhere. When Disney asked for additional motivation for the comedian Larry Miller’s overprotective, pregnancy-obsessed father in 10 Things, they made him a gynecologist. Other times, they said, studio participation can be perplexing. ... Ms. McCullah Lutz, referring to Ella Enchanted: “Miramax is the only studio that’s ever told us to add” a flatulence joke. Ms. Smith: “Which I was very excited about.”
Keep in mind, of course, that this was Miramax circa 2004 — an extraordinary stroke of luck for the forthcoming pilot, in which a lumbering studio mogul named Marty Feinstein summons the women to his office on the Disney lot for a hi-larious exchange "clearing the air about clearing the air." Indeed, we smell Emmy.