Screen Rant Pitch Meetings / Tropes M To Y

Screen Rant Pitch Meetings provides examples of the following tropes:

Tropes A-L | Tropes M-Y

---

Tropes M-S

• MacGuffin:
  • In the pitch meeting for Ant-Man and the Wasp, the item Hope needs to buy from Sonny Burch is said to serve no purpose apart from bringing him into the movie.
  • In the pitch meeting for Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen, the Matrix of Leadership is referred to as one of many "thingies" in the movie, the Producer's term for this trope.
  • In the Artemis Fowl pitch meeting, when the Screenwriter describes a "super-powerful magical thingamajig that can do things, just one of those story things that everybody wants, a thing to kinda drive the plot forward", the Producer name-drops the trope.
  • In The Rise of Skywalker, the heroes need a "thing" to reach Palpatine, which requires them to find another "thing" first, something the Producer likens to "fetch quests."
  • It also comes up in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, with the Guardians running around the galaxy to try and locate the code to disable Rocket's implanted kill-switch.
  • During the Argylle pitch meeting, the Screenwriter namedrops "MacGuffin" while describing the "important thingy" the villainous spies are going after "because it's got secrets or something".
• Made of Iron: Zigzagged in Spider-Man 2. The Screenwriter says that Doc Ock can tank multiple punches from Spider-Man, but Aunt May hitting him with an umbrella hurts him.
• Magic Pants:
  • In X-Men: The Last Stand, Wolverine's pants remain intact despite the rest of his clothes being destroyed in order to keep the film at a PG-13 rating.
  • In New Moon, the Screenwriter says that while Jacob has to go around shirtless because his werewolf transformations destroy his clothes, his pants are unaffected. He says that the Producer should "get all the way off (his) back" unless he wants to talk about "the technicalities of werewolf junk."
• Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex: Brought up indirectly in Fantastic Four (2005). The Producer wonders how Johnny bangs his nurse when she's just measured his internal temperature at roughly 200 degrees.
  Producer: Oh, physically impossible lovemaking is TIGHT!
• A Match Made in Stockholm: "Stockholm Syndrome" is namedropped when referring to Belle's romance with her captor, the Beast, in Beauty and the Beast (2017), when she falls in love with the Beast after he's nice to her a handful of times.
• Mathematician's Answer: During the pitch meeting for Disney's live-action Pinocchio film, the Screenwriter says that they'll show that Gepetto's house is full of clocks featuring Disney characters, "just a ton of references!" The Producer asks if these are "Easter Eggs or overindulging in self-promotion", and the Screenwriter answers, "Yes."
• Meaningless Meaningful Words: In The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Karli Morgenthau's charisma is due to saying vaguely inspiring things such as "Our movement is strong, it's time to make ourselves heard," which inspire people despite not meaning anything.
• Metaphorgotten: The Screenwriter is prone to this, as seen in The Meg episode. Often to confuse the Producer into agreeing.
  Screenwriter: People say you can't have your cake and eat it too.
  Producer: Right, my point exactly.
  Screenwriter: But we're talking about a 70 foot shark here. This thing can eat anything it wants to!
  Producer: I guess that makes sense.
  Screenwriter: Trust me. It does.
  Producer: Fantastic!
• Minimalist Cast: The cast is just Ryan George playing two guys and occasional third characters who drop in. One episode has a brief interlude in England where another actor plays the British Producer and Screenwriter guys. Another episode has Matthew Patrick playing another two guys, and Simu Liu briefly replaces the Screenwriter in a special that celebrates the series reaching 300 episodes. Other than that, it's entirely a one man show.
• A Minor Kidroduction:
  • The Star Trek (2009) pitch meeting mocks this trope, with the Producer saying that showing a young Kirk and Spock will prove that the two were once children, rather than being born as fully-grown adults.
  • In Fantastic Four (2015), the Producer asks whether it's necessary to show Reed and Ben as children. The Screenwriter says that showing the heroes as kids has been a required part of superhero origin stories ever since Batman Begins, even if it forces them to hire more actors.
• Misapplied Phlebotinum: A major point in the Star Trek Into Darkness pitch meeting is pointing out that Starfleet's transwarp beaming can apparently teleport someone a good chunk of the way across the galaxy to the homeworld of its greatest nemesis, and rather than simply using it to help Khan make a getaway, Starfleet should consider that they've essentially made spaceships obsolete. Naturally, the two of them agree to simply ignore the implications of this.
• Misplaced Retribution: In the The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies pitch meeting, Smaug attacks Laketown in revenge for the dwarves invading his lair, despite the fact that the dwarves aren't even from Laketown. The Producer calls him "a strangely-motivated lizard."
• Missing Trailer Scene: invokedMultiple times during the Morbius (2022) pitch meeting, the Producer decides to insert references to the Marvel Cinematic Universe and Venom (2018) because those are "interconnected thing[s] that [they] can do, and it'll be good in the trailer", and they don't actually have to put those elements in the movie, just the trailer.
• Mondegreen Gag: Along with Comically Missing the Point, sometimes, the Producer or Screenwriter will mishear what the other is saying, leading to a humorous misunderstanding.
  • The New Mutants pitch meeting:
    Screenwriter: This is gonna be called The New Mutants!
    Producer: Uhh, I'unno, I feel like they're gonna have to be clothed.
    Screenwriter: No, new.
    Producer: Oh, okay, that's probably fine.
  • Uncharted (2022) pitch meeting:
    Screenwriter: I'm so excited for this one: Uncharted!
    Producer: Oh. You should probably get yourself cleaned up.
  • The actor pitch meeting for Chris Pratt opens with the Producer thinking he's being pitched a crisp rat (ignoring the Screenwriter who's trying to explain):
    Producer: How did this rat get so crispy?
    Screenwriter: Oh, no, that's not-
    Producer: Did you barbecue a rat?
    Screenwriter: I didn't barbecue a rat, no. Chris Pratt is-
    Producer: I'll be honest, I don't really know what kind of movie I can use a crisp rat in.
• Monochrome Casting: In the Friends Pitch:
  Producer: And I'm guessing since it's in New York, there's gonna be a lot of diversity.
  Screenwriter: Everyone will be white.
  Producer: Oh.
• Monochrome Past: The pitch for The Star Wars Holiday Special takes place in the late 1970s and has a brownish tinge.
• Monster Misogyny: In the Stranger Things pitch meeting, the Producer asks why the Demogorgon kills Barb but not Will, and the Screenwriter says he doesn't know, and denies that his ex-girlfriend was named Barb.
  • The same gag occurs in the Jurassic World pitch meeting when the Screenwriter describes poor Zara's drawn-out and brutal demise.
    Screenwriter: Claire's assistant, this British lady named Zara, gets tossed around by pterodactyls like she was a ragdoll and shoved into the water and then she's eaten by a giant dinosaur shark and it's super scary and she dies.
    Producer: Jesus! What did she do to deserve that?
    Screenwriter: Uh ... nothing, I guess.
    Producer: Wasn't your ex-girlfriend a British woman named Zara?
    Screenwriter: I mean, I don't see what that has to do with anything.
• Monumental Damage:
  • The Producer hates the Golden Gate bridge and demands it be destroyed in his movies. According to the Screenwriter, it's common among all Producers.
  • The Independence Day pitch meeting has the Screenwriter propose that the aliens destroy landmarks "'cause it's gonna look cool in the trailer."
• Mood Whiplash:
  • Discussed in the Shazam! pitch meeting, when, after discussing Billy's fooling around with his superpowers, the Screenwriter brings up Dr. Sivana brutally killing his father and brother, along with the rest of the board of directors. The Producer then lampshades the massive tonal shift, asking whether the film is a kids' movie or a horror movie.
  • In the X-Men: Apocalypse pitch meeting, the Screenwriter mentions a fun sequence involving Quicksilver, followed by Havoc dying, much to the Screenwriter's surprise.
  • In the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 pitch meeting, the Screenwriter mentions that unnecessarily graphic scenes of Rocket's friends being abused and eventually murdered are intercut with light-hearted scenes of the characters bickering.
• Morality Pet: In the The Lost World: Jurassic Park episode, the Screenwriter says that Ian's daughter will sneak onto a trailer so that he'll have someone to care about and rescue and serve as his motivation. The Producer then reminds him that Ian was originally going to Isla Sorna to save his girlfriend, so this is unnecessary.
• Morton's Fork: In the Gods of Egypt pitch meeting, Set tells the people to bow to him or become slaves. The ones who bow to him end up becoming slaves.
• Motive Decay: In Home Alone, the burglars eventually forget about their initial goal of robbing the McCallister house and decide to murder Kevin instead.
• Mr. Exposition:
  • In the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 pitch meeting, Ego the Living Planet is initially called "Exposition," because 90% of his dialogue is exposition.
  • In the Five Nights at Freddy's (2023) pitch meeting, Vanessa's primary role in the film is to deliver exposition, and as a result, Mike doesn't figure out anything on his own. Surprisingly, though, she neglects to tell him the most important information.
• My God, You Are Serious!: Happens in the Hancock pitch meeting:
  Screenwriter: Anyways, so he takes a guy's head and shoves it up another guy's butt.
  Producer: (laughs) Yeah, right-wait really?
  Screenwriter: Yeah, that's a real scene in this movie, Hancock's gonna put a man's head inside another man's butt.
  • In the The Rings of Power pitch meeting, about Galadriel jumping overboard:
    Producer: Is she planning to swim back to Middle Earth?
    Screenwriter: (laughs) Yeah, that's the plan.
    Producer: (laughs once) Oh my god, you're serious.
• Nameless Narrative:
  • The two on-screen characters don't have names, they're just the Producer guy and the Screenwriter guy. Subverted in one episode where the Screenwriter guy reveals that his actual legal name is... Screenwriter Guy. The same appears to be true with Producer Guy (or sometimes "Movie Executive Guy").
  • In the Jurassic World pitch meeting, the Screenwriter initially plans on forgoing names because the characters are so flat they don't need them, but the Producer convinces him they need names, so he thinks of names for "Money Lady" (Claire) and "Animal-Loving Navy Guy."
• Negative Continuity:
  • In the Pokémon Detective Pikachu episode, Screenwriter reveals that he has Ditto-esque eyes underneath his glasses which make him look completely normal, yet for some reason in the The Big Bang Theory episode, he's seen taking off his glasses, but has completely normal-looking eyes.
  • In the Ghost Rider (2007) pitch meeting (among others), the Screenwriter says that he's never met a real woman, but he starts the Home Alone pitch meeting by talking about his wife (whose infidelity he's oblivious to).
• Nepotism:
  • The reason why Johnny was brought on board in Fantastic Four (2015) despite the fact that building his own car isn't that impressive of an achievement; he just happens to be the son of the man in charge.
  • The Producer thinks that Jaden Smith starring in After Earth with his father (skipping auditions for Kitai's character) sounds like a "pretty intense case of nepotism".
• Never Trust a Title:
  • In the pitch meeting for Avengers: Age of Ultron, the Producer is surprised to hear that the film takes place over "a couple of days," and asks the Screenwriter if he knows what "age" means.
  • In the pitch meeting for Clash of the Titans (2010), the Producer notices that there are no titans in the movie- just humans, Greek gods and some monsters.
  • In the Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials pitch meeting, the Producer realizes that the characters aren't running in a maze, there are no trials, and there isn't even any "scorching," and even "the" isn't really in the movie.
• New Powers as the Plot Demands:
  • The Screenwriter likes to avoid defining the powers a person or object holds such as Loki, Doctor Doom and the Silver Surfer, or the Ten Rings so he can have them do whatever he needs for the sake of the plot.
  • In Wonder Woman 1984, Diana turns the stolen jet invisible to escape the authorities, with the Producer pointing out, "Well, thank God she has that ability we never once mentioned or referenced".
  • In Eternals, Sersi is able to use the last of her enhanced power to make Sprite human despite never having done something like that before.
• No Ending: In the Halloween (1978) Pitch meeting, the producer asks what's going to happen after Michael gets stabbed and shot a bunch of times and then falls out of a window, only to disappear and leave no body behind. The Screenwriter replies by saying that, according to his calculations, that's where the production will completely run out of money so the film will just sort of stop there.
• Nom de Mom: In the Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse pitch meeting, the Producer gets confused by this trope, noting that kids usually take their fathers' names.
• Non-Indicative Name: Jurassic Park (1993) mainly has dinosaurs from the Cretaceous period, but the Screenwriter hates how "Cretaceous Park" sounds.
• No Social Skills: The reason that the screenwriter included a scene of Roxanne checking a magic 8-ball during a date where she was stood up (in Ghost Rider) is because he's "Never been on a date before, nor [has he] ever met a human woman."
• Not His Sled: The Glass (2019) pitch winds up being a subversion of the usual video formula at the end: once the Screenwriter is done, the Producer brings up that he has some notes about the questionable decisions made with the plot. What happens next?
  Screenwriter: Well, screw you, then. [leaves]
  Producer: What?
  [hard cut to Screen Rant article discussing how M. Night Shyamalan personally financed the film]
• "Not Making This Up" Disclaimer:
  • In a Leaning on the Fourth Wall manner, when the Producer suggests, instead of calling Back to the Future that title, they go with "Spaceman from Pluto", he says:
    Producer: Yeah yeah yeah, that is a real note that a Hollywood studio executive is giving.
  • The Screenwriter says that Hancock will include a scene where Hancock shoves a guy's head up another guy's butt. When the Producer expresses incredulity, the Screenwriter confirms, "Yeah, that's a real scene in this movie. Hancock's gonna put a man's head inside another man's butt."
  • In the Day Shift pitch meeting, an exchange like this occurs when Heather points out that "vampires don't pee or poo."
    Screenwriter: That is an actual- that is a real line from this movie that I've written here (points at script).
    Producer: (gives a thumbs up) And I'm signing off on it!
  • The Producer doesn't believe that the infamous child orgy scene from It is in the book, thinking it's something the Screenwriter just made up, but the Screenwriter confirms that no, it really is. This is one of the few times that the Producer flat out vetoes something.
• Not So Above It All: As it happens, the stipulation in The Polar Express' song about hot chocolate that you mustn't let it cool happened in part because of Screenwriter's severe insistence on drinking hot beverages hot:
  Producer: You need ta- you gotta let it cool a little bit.
  Screenwriter: NOPE, NOPE, YOU DRINK IT SCALDING HOT.
• "Not So Different" Remark: In the No Time to Die Pitch Meeting, the producer mentions how villains love telling heroes how they're not so different from each other.
• No, You:
  • In the pitch meeting for The Amazing Spider-Man 2, when the Screenwriter insists that since he needs the plot to move forward, not everything will end up making sense.
  Producer: Feels like you should have stuff make sense.
  Screenwriter: Feels like you should have stuff make sense.
• Obligatory Joke: invoked Towards the end of the F9 pitch meeting, the Producer calls into question that the film is going to reveal that Dom has a brother, despite that never coming up before then:
  Producer: It's just, how is it possible that we've never seen this guy before, you know, how's that possible?
  Screenwriter: Maybe we get creative with casting!
  Producer: What?
  (hard cut to the Screen Rant article revealing John Cena got cast)
  • In the Interstellar pitch meeting, the Screenwriter twice responds to the Producer's use of "oddly specific" by saying, "You're oddly specific!"
• Obviously Evil:
  • The Producer immediately realizes who the Big Bad of Pokémon Detective Pikachu is after the Screenwriter mentions the villain's motives, despite the Screenwriter's attempts to deny that the character is a villain.
  • In Daredevil, Matt needs his Living Lie Detector abilities to find out that the rapist on trial is lying, even though he's barely trying to hide his guilt.
• Oh, Crap!: Both the Sony Screenwriter and the Producer get a major one when they see the online reactions regarding their decision to withdraw Spider-Man from the MCU.
• Only in Florida: After the Producer expresses concern that Tiger King is too implausible and unrealistic sounding to be a real documentary, the Screenwriter states it's filmed in rural Oklahoma and Florida. That instantly assuages the Producer's unease.
• Only Sane Man: The two characters generally alternate between this, oftentimes trying to shoot down a particularly outlandish suggestion to no avail. It's usually the Producer guy who is the one trying to shoot things down. The episode on Game of Thrones Season 8 plays this the straightest, where the Producer guy (representing HBO) is entirely reasonable and completely steamrolled by the Screenwriter. In the Twilight Breaking Dawn pitch, the Producer sigh and goes silent when the Screenwriter bring up Jacob bonding with a baby. When the Screenwriter says Jacob will first help raise the baby before entering in a romantic relationship with it, the producer sighs again and goes "You know that's somehow worse right? You know that?". Sadly the screenwriter distracts him by reminding him how much money they'll make.
• Only the Author Can Save Them Now: invoked Implied in the pitch meeting for Return of the Jedi, when the Screenwriter, when pressed, explains that he had to "make the Emperor an idiot" so the protagonists would be able to win.'
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Anything that can make the Producer lose his Perpetual Smile counts
  • For example, learning that the dog dies in John Wick. After several seconds of Stunned Silence, the Producer very seriously states that people better die for that. He gets even angrier when the Screenwriter punches a drawing of a puppy to illustrate how he's going to get the audience to hate the Big Bad of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, first threatening to kill the Screenwriter, then blacklist him, and then nuke his house after setting his mailbox on fire.
  • Similarly, it takes an extremely stupid writing choice for him to actually put his foot down and give any negative feedback.
  • In the Black Panther: Wakanda Forever pitch meeting, he's completely serious while hearing about the tribute to Chadwick Boseman, and the "Wow" while hearing about Shuri failing to save her brother sounds like he means it for once.
• Orcus on His Throne: In Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), the Screenwriter hypes up Thanos and says he "will do some real damage"... in 2018.
• Out-of-Character Moment: In the pitch meeting for Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, the Producer notes that Dumbledore, usually a calm character, angrily yells and shakes Harry when his name comes out of the goblet. The Screenwriter says that he was projecting his own anger issues onto the character.
• Overly Long Gag:
  • In the Kong: Skull Island pitch meeting, the Screenwriter repeatedly says "And then Kong makes a helicopter crash" until the Producer begs him to stop.
  • The Barbenheimer pitch meeting has the Screenwriter repeatedly say some variation of "The patriarchy is bad" to the point the Producer insists that "it's kind of a lot". Then the Screenwriter hits him in the head with a piece of paper that says "Patriarchy not good", causing the Producer to ask if he was "just literally hit across the head with the message".
• Padding: invoked
  • In the Unbreakable pitch meeting, the Screenwriter says that if the Producer wants to make the movie last longer than ten minutes, they'll have to resort to this trope. This includes adding shots of characters staring, inserting long dramatic pauses into dialogue, having characters take a long time to explain things and making David slow to realize that he's never taken a sick day before
    Producer: Oh, unnecessary dramatic pauses in the middle of sentences are... (pauses for seven seconds) ...tight.
  • The 300 pitch meeting has the film repeatedly go into slow motion in order to reach a feature film's runtime.
  • In the pitch meeting for Stranger Things Season 4, the Producer notes that much of the Russia subplot involves the characters repeatedly escaping from prison, being re-captured, and escaping again.
• Parental Favoritism: In the Interstellar pitch meeting, the Screenwriter notes that Cooper cares about Murph a lot more than he does about Tom, and the Producer remarks that the same goes with his kids, Becky and Dumbfartface.
• Perfectly Cromulent Word: In the Cats pitch meeting, the Producer is confused that the Screenwriter's decided to keep "saying the made-up word 'Jellicle' and not provide any context or explanation".
• Permanent Placeholder: Invoked On a few occasions a particularly cliché bit of dialogue is described as being a placeholder the Screenwriter put in but never bothered changing, sometimes obviously lying about his intention to change it to the producer. For example, on "from my point of view, the Jedi are evil!"
  "It was placeholder dialogue, but I lost the login information for my laptop so we're kind of stuck with it now."
• Perpetual Smiler: Both characters. While the smile was more subdued in the beginning, a few years into the series, they're constantly beaming from one ear to the other. This is lampshaded in the Pitch Meetings pitch meeting, where the Producer points out that all this smiling will make the characters look unhinged.
• Person as Verb: In the Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny pitch meeting, the Producer says that the Big Bad, who got bonked on the head by a passing metal thing while on a train, got "Dennis Hoppered," and should have died like Hopper's character did after suffering the same thing in Speed.
• Perverse Sexual Lust: In the Space Jam pitch meeting, the Screenwriter is clearly turned on by his own creation of Lola Bunny. At one point, he says Lola kisses "me" when he meant to say that she kisses Bugs Bunny. He is also weirdly into the idea of Simba and Nala hooking up in The Lion King (1994), despite the fact that they're at least cousins, if not half-siblings.[note]Since Simba and Nala are from the same pride, she's either Mufasa or Scar's daughter.[/note]
• Pet the Dog: Invoked a few times by the Screenwriter, usually as a defense of a protagonist who should otherwise be unlikable but he insist is fine because of a minor good deed early in the film.
  • In the Hellboy (2004) episode, he calls those a "save the cat" moment so he has Hellboy... rescue a bunch of cats. He doesn't think it's a problem that by keeping them next to him during the fight with Samael, he's putting them in danger.
  • In the The Amazing Spider-Man episode, it's Peter defending a kid from a bully and Screenwriter guy assumes that this absolves Peter's behavior for the rest of the movie.
  • Defied in the Christmas with the Kranks pitch video, in which the Screenwriter says the entire cast is unlikeable, after being asked if there's any obligatory "save the cat" moments.
• Pillar of Light:
  • Since The Suicide Squad is a CGI-heavy blockbuster film, the Producer expects the final battle to involve a "sky beam" (asking what color it'll be) and is crestfallen and dubious when the Screenwriter says the threat will be an alien starfish.
  • He also expects Joker (2019) to have a CGI sky beam solely due to it being a comic book movie, and calls the Screenwriter crazy when he tells him it doesn't have one.
• The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: In The Book of Boba Fett, despite Boba Fett and Fennec Shand becoming crime bosses, they don't do a single crime, with them instead trying and failing to gain the respect of the town.
• Planet of Steves : When asked about the name "Pollux" during the Pitch Meeting for Face/Off.
• Plot Armor:
  • At times the Screenwriter will only explain why a character survives with "it's a main character". The pitch meeting for Mortal Kombat (2021) name-drops the trope as the Screenwriter describes Cole's newfound power: clothes made "entirely out of plot armor".
  • In the pitch for Stranger Things, the Screenwriter notes that the villains murder a man in the first episode simply for interacting with Eleven, while Hopper, one of the protagonists, becomes a much bigger liability for them, but they don't kill him.
  • This is a bit of a Running Gag in the Jurassic World Dominion pitch meeting, in which characters survive many things, from plane crashes to plunging into freezing cold water, because they're the main characters.
  • In the Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest pitch meeting, the Kraken can devour a ship without any named characters almost instantly, but it takes five to ten minutes if the main characters are on it.
• Plot Hole: In the pitch meeting for Stranger Things, the Screenwriter explains that the Demogorgon is attracted to blood and abducts Will Byers, who wasn't bleeding.
  • During the Mulan (2020) pitch, the Screenwriter explains that Mulan joins the army in her father's stead because his age and bad leg make him unfit to fight. He then says that the army commander will send home anyone who can't keep up with the training, meaning that if her father had gone, he'd just have been sent home, rendering Mulan's whole arc and the movie pointless. When the Producer points this out, the Screenwriter is briefly stunned into silence.
• Plot-Irrelevant Villain:
  • In Ant-Man and the Wasp, Sonny Burch's role amounts to serving as the leader of "a group of punching bags" that let the heroes have car chases and fights without the FBI getting involved.
  • In The Book of Boba Fett, Cad Bane is supposed to be the Big Bad but isn't introduced until the penultimate episode and is barely fleshed out, so only the fans who watched Star Wars: The Clone Wars will really know what his deal is.
• Pop-Cultural Osmosis Failure: In the Spider-Man: No Way Home pitch meeting, the Producer isn't particularly excited about the actors from the Spider-Man Trilogy and The Amazing Spider-Man Series that the Screenwriter wants to bring in, because he hasn't seen them. The Screenwriter comments that he should have had a more enthusiastic reaction and pushes him to watch all five. He is much more enthused after that.
• Police Are Useless: In the Die Hard pitch meeting, the police are made unbelievably stupid because if they were competent, the movie would come to a premature end.
• Poor Communication Kills: In Dragon Ball Evolution, Goku breaks into Roshi's house and doesn't tell him what he's doing there so they can have a fight scene.
• Porky Pig Pronunciation: During the Uncharted (2022) pitch meeting, the Screenwriter describes Sully asking to take Nathan on an expedition, and the Producer stumbles in the response:
  ''What are they expedit- expe- what's the expedition?
• Precision F-Strike: In Old, the Screenwriter utters a bleeped-out "Shit!" when the Producer points out a Plot Hole in his attempt to explain the big twist of the movie- it's impossible to cover up the disappearance of hundreds of people on the beach, including a famous rapper, unless none of them told anyone where they were going on vacation. He soon recovers his composure enough to insist that the Producer get all the way off his back, though.
• Product Placement:
  • In the Power Rangers (2017) pitch, when the Screenwriter says the power crystal the heroes need to find is in an unremarkable building, the Screenwriter cuts in to say it's a Krispy Kreme store, and characters will mention Krispy Kreme, and Rita will eat a doughnut.
  • The generous amount of product placement throughout the Transformers Film Series is given a nod in the Transformers: Age of Extinction pitch, when the Screenwriter says that with the Transformium MacGuffin in the baddies' hands, they can transform the stuff "into any product placement we want".
  • Space Jam: A New Legacy is highlighted for being one for Warner Bros.
    Screenwriter: In practically every scene there's gonna be recognizable Warner Bros. property or someone saying Warner Bros!
    Producer: Amazing! Sounds like the cinematic equivalent of scrolling through our Wikipedia page!
  • During the pitch meeting for Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, the Producer interrupts the Screenwriter to specify that they drive "a beautiful BMW" to get to Ta Lo.
    Screenwriter: Okay, seems like you're getting a lot of money to specify that.
  • The protagonist of Home Sweet Home Alone goes to sit in the "family car" for alone time, but the Producer forces the Screenwriter to turn it into a painfully blatant BMW commercial.
    Producer: Okay, there you go! That sounds a lot more... money.
  • In the Red Notice pitch meeting, the Screenwriter includes Coca-Cola as part of a plot point, and the Producer remarks that sure, they'll give them money to be included in the movie. The Producer also sounds a little unimpressed with the inclusion of Ryan Reynolds' gin brand and Dwayne Johnson's tequila brand in the film.
  • The Ghostbusters: Afterlife pitch meeting has the Producer and Screenwriter play "Product Placement Mad Libs" to identify a store and a product that will give them a lot of money for their inclusion in the movie.
  • The Producer makes the Screenwriter include a clue and a fight scene in a Papa John's in Uncharted (2022), despite it not making a whole lot of sense.
    Producer: A very exciting action scene brought to you by Papa John's!
  • Moonfall includes blatant product placement for Lexus by showing the characters switching modes in their brand new car to outrun villains in a car chase. The Producer cheerfully remarks that Lexus will give them money to include that.
  • In the Jurassic World pitch, the Producer lists off every single company and product that he wants included in the movie.
    Producer: Just a couple like Beats By Dre, Starbucks, Converse, American Airlines, Coca-Cola, Samsung, Pandora, Margaritaville, Hilton, Triumph, Verizon Wireless, Columbia, Nissan, Nike, Oakley, IWC, Ben and Jerry’s, Brookstone, IMAX, Mike and Ike, and like a crapload of Mercedes.
• Prolonged Prologue: invoked The Producer says that the flashback to Diana's childhood at the start of Wonder Woman 1984 would be a good way to quickly establish one of the movie's themes, only to be told that the scene is 11 minutes long.
• Random Events Plot: The Producer seems to think that most of Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore is one.
  Producer: Hey, can I ask you something?
  Screenwriter: Of course!
  Producer: What the hell's going on?
  Screenwriter: Exactly!
  Producer: Right.
• Rapid-Fire Comedy: Much humor comes from the Screenwriter enthusiastically pitching a movie to the Producer, and oftentimes they'll barely stop at a joke before moving on. ​
  Producer: But if they're never in any actual danger, it feels like the action sequences won't have any stakes whatsoever.
  Screenwriter: Yeah, well, that's fine because I'm vegan anyway.
  Producer: What?
  Screenwriter: And so they're also gonna run into this bad guy...
• Rapid-Fire "No!": During the Fifty Shades of Grey, the Producer assumes that Anastasia is "super sexy with a great personality" since Christian instantly falls in love with her. The Screenwriter rapidly says no over and over, gradually slowing down until the Producer awkwardly moves on.
• Reality Subtext: invoked Right from the very outset, the pitch meeting for The Matrix Resurrections lampshades the film's own use of it by having Screenwriter (passive-aggresively) explain the film starts with the main character being forced to make a fourth installment to his completed trilogy series.
• Reboot Snark: Pitch meetings for any of Disney's live-action reboots of classic animated films accent how much of a blatant cash-grab such films are, beyond the normal level for the pitch meetings.
• Recognition Failure: In the Ghostbusters 2 pitch meeting, police don't recognize the eponymous characters in their Paper-Thin Disguise as construction workers despite the Ghostbusters being national celebrities, because according to the Screenwriter, everyone forgot about the Ghostbusters after the first one.
• Recycled Script: invoked
  • The Lion King (2019) is described as this to The Lion King (1994). For a moment, the Producer is disappointed/concerned when the Screenwriter promises something totally original, but is relieved when the Screenwriter admits to having been kidding. The Screenwriter proposes making a copy of the previous film except for the parts that can't be done with real life animals.
  • The Screenwriter claims that he was able to write the script for Home Alone 2: Lost in New York in 20 minutes by taking "every single story beat and plot point" from the first movie and making them more intense and elaborate.
  • The The Little Mermaid (2023) pitch meeting has the Screenwriter state that the hero's father doesn't approve of his child's yearning for adventure, and tasks a reluctant advisor with keeping tabs on the child, while the king's evil sibling tricks the child into a dangerous situation as part of a scheme to become ruler of the kingdom. As the Screenwriter is saying this, B-roll from The Lion King (2019) plays.
  • Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny has Harrison Ford's character be separated from his wife, lose his son and play second fiddle to a female newcomer with a British accent, something the Producer recognizes as a retread of Han Solo's arc in the sequel trilogy of Star Wars. He even justifies having the mayor's assistant committing the Ghostbusters to a psychiatric asylum as a retread of Peck's having the Ghostbusters arrested in the first movie.
  • In the Ghostbusters 2 pitch meeting, the Screenwriter says that since people liked the first movie, he'll "do it again, beat for beat but slightly different."
• Recycled In Space: Avatar is described as "Pocahontas but in space with some big blue kitty cats."
• Released to Elsewhere:
  • In the Wonder Woman 1984 pitch meeting, the Screenwriter justifies electricity causing the now catlike Barbara to fall asleep by saying that it's what happens to cats. The Producer points out the cat probably died, the Screenwriter says no, his father told him that when his cat chewed through an extension cord, he fell asleep, then went to live on a farm.
  • In the pitch meeting for Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials, the Screenwriter says every so often, some kids in the mysterious facility are selected by Mr. Janson and then vanish.
    Screenwriter: They're being told that they're going off to live on a nice farm.
    Producer: Oh, going off to live on a nice farm is tight! [realizing] Oh wait, that's always a code for death.
• Remember the New Guy?:
  • In The Amazing Spider-Man 2 pitch meeting, Harry is said to be a long-time friend of Peter's despite never having been mentioned in the first movie, which also dealt with Oscorp. The Producer points out that Peter's memory is horrible.
  • In Ant-Man and the Wasp, the Producer is confused as to why Ghost wasn't shown earlier if she was part of SHIELD for many years.
• Repetitive Name: In the Interstellar pitch meeting, the Producer makes fun of Tom's decision to name his son Cooper, since he'd be "Cooper Cooper."
• Revenge via Storytelling: In the Jurassic World pitch meeting, the Screenwriter describes the Cruel and Unusual Death of Claire's assistant, a "British lady named Zara", at the hands of the park's dinosaurs. The Producer remarks that he remembers the Screenwriter's ex-girlfriend was "a British woman named Zara".
• Rhetorical Question Blunder:
  • In the pitch meeting for Season 8 of Game of Thrones
    Screenwriter: I mean, who has a better story than Bran?
    Producer: I mean, arguably any other character.
  • Inverted in the Jurassic World Dominion pitch meeting, where the Producer asks a serious question that the Screenwriter mistakes as rhetorical.
    Screenwriter: We're bringing back original beloved characters many years later!
    Producer: Is there any other way to make money these days?
    Screenwriter: I know, right?
    Producer: No, seriously, is there? 'Cause we're rapidly running out of iconic characters to bring back. Please help.
• Rogue Agent: The ubiquity of the agent-gone-rogue trope is mocked in the pitch meeting for The Gray Man (2022), in which the main character becomes an enemy of his agency.
  Producer: So the CIA asset is gonna have his own agency turn against him? [concentrating] Wha- what- what- what movie did I see that in?
  Screenwriter: Ohhh, yeah, what was tha- what was- which one was that? That was, ah... Oh. That was all of them.
  Producer: Yeah, that's right. It was every single one of them.
• Rouge Angles of Satin: Parodied in the Rogue One pitch meeting, in which the Producer briefly thinks it's Rouge One, and references how many people online get the two terms mixed up.
• Rousing Speech: In the The Rings of Power, the Screenwriter writes so many inspirational speeches for the show that he ends up launching into one when the Producer calls him out on it.
  Screenwriter: It is a lot of speeches. But what, are we supposed to stand around and not listen to a bunch of speeches? No! Today is when we take our stand!
• Rubber Orifice: The Producer, listening to the Screenwriter making a pitch for Hancock, points out that Hancock shoving a guy's head up another guy's butt will kill both victims. The Screenwriter says that he "checked the script, and turns out that's not deadly", and later, both guys are indeed alive, and they want to get revenge on Hancock.
• Rule of Cool: invoked Many of the Screenwriter's decision outright stem from this.
  • Outright name dropped in the Mission: Impossible and Pacific Rim videos.
  • During the meet for Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, the Producer questions how Peter's DNA getting mixed up in the dimensional portal machine caused several characters who are not him to cross over. After several offered explanations are rejected, the Screenwriter points out the alternative is to not have a bunch of fun, alternate versions of Spider-Man in the movie; the Producer gets off his back because he definitely does want that.
  • During the Kong: Skull Island, the male lead asking for five times what he'd been offered, plus a bonus if he makes it back alive, is described as just being there to show how cool he is. The producer points out that the part about the bonus doesn't make sense, since he doesn't need money if he dies, but the Screenwriter tells him to get off his back.
  • In Season 4 of Stranger Things, Eddie distracts the bats in the Upside Down by playing his guitar on a rooftop, instead of standing right in front of the door he needs to get through. The Screenwriter explains that doing it on the roof looks a lot cooler.
  • When discussing John Wick: Chapter 4, Screenwriter Guy invokes the Rule of Cool as it's apparently an ancient law in Hollywood the Producer must adhere to.
    Screenwriter Guy: There exists an old tradition in Hollywood that if a scene looks cool you must allow the screenwriter to get there by any means necessary.
    Producer Guy: (Deep Sigh) You're really going to invoke the Rule of Cool right now?
    Screenwriter Guy: I am.
• Running Gag:
  • The Screenwriter saying that because the movie is an origin story, they have to show the character as a kid. Usually in response to the Producer pointing out the childhood scene didn't reveal any information that couldn't have been given elsewhere in the film and requires hiring more actors to play the child versions of the characters.
  • The Producer on the fly coming up with an interesting plot development only for the Screenwriter to agree and invokedsay they are not going to do that.
  • The Screenwriter and Producer will sometimes make references to Marvel Cinematic Universe works, often by way of Freudian Slip, whenever a non-MCU movie is anywhere from coincidentally similar to or an outright ripoff of an MCU film in some plot element. (e.g. Quoting Tony's one-liner prior to his Heroic Sacrifice in Avengers: Endgame for The Rise of Skywalker)
  • In the Ready Player One (2018) pitch meeting, whenever the Screenwriter feels as though he's losing the Producer, he brings up a pop culture reference to distract him.
  • The producer is pretty adept at pointing out inconsistencies in plot, characterization, or even if the work is unsuitable for adaptation to a new medium. But he folds like a deck of cards the moment the Screenwriter mentions a movie's potential money-making ability.
  • The Screenwriter's defense for an inadequately explained element is often "because I wrote it," or because the plot requires it to happen.
  • The series often makes fun of overly complex magical elements of a story (e.g. the fountain of youth from Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides), particularly how the people involved know the specific steps required to use them properly.
  • When the Screenwriter discusses a particularly horrible idea that somehow meets with the Producer's approval, the latter will say "yes, and I'm going to spend actual money to commit it to film".
  • In the Venom (2018) pitch meeting, after a brief discussion on how "symbiote" is supposed to be pronounced, the Producer switches "be" and "buy" around.
  • In the Super Mario Bros. (1993) pitch meeting, the Screenwriter keeps answering the Producer's questions on why things happen with "I don't care."
  • The Producer having to distract himself from how much he hates the Twilight: Breaking Dawn pitch with how much money the movie will make.
  • In the pitch meeting for Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, the Producer keeps bringing up both how horrifying the movie is and that Grandpa Joe is super sketchy.
  • The pitch meeting for Zack Snyder's Justice League has the Screenwriter play Wonder Woman's theme from his smartphone every time her name is mentioned or the Amazons do anything.
  • The pitch meeting for The Falcon and the Winter Soldier sees the Screenwriter repeatedly talking about how terrible invokedJohn Walker is and how sympathetic Karli is despite the plot showing the exact opposite. Such as Walker being terrible for killing the man who helped kill his partner but "Karli is doing her absolute best to kill Sam because she's a sympathetic character".
  • The Producer can never guess what the next The Fast and the Furious film will be named while the Screenwriter always thinks the answer is obvious, even though the naming convention is all over the place.
  • The Obi-Wan Kenobi pitch meeting has a twist on the "He's from the previous movie!" catchphrase, in which the Producer references obscure works featuring the characters (The Star Wars Holiday Special for Luke), works in which the characters have minor appearances (Rogue One for Leia), or works in which they don't even appear at all (The Mandalorian for Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker).
  • In the Pinocchio (2022, Disney) pitch meeting, the Screenwriter mispronounces Pinocchio's name a different way each time he says it.
  • In the Top Gun: Maverick pitch meeting, the Producer keeps bringing up how the movie is basically Star Wars. Eventually when the Screenwriter insists it isn't, the Producer just gives a mocking laugh.
  • During the Fast X pitch meeting, the Screenwriter makes it very clear he's not remotely invested in the script. Besides openly stating he doesn't care, he wrote part of it using Mad Libs, picked the location of the final showdown by throwing a dart at a map, and chooses cameos by picking names out of a hat.
  • In the pitch meeting for The Marvels (2023), after the Producer remarks that he hopes Dar-Benn isn't another bland and forgetabble villain, he continuously forgets who she is any time the Screenwriter mentions her.
• Russian Reversal: At the end spiel of the Batman Returns video, Ryan tells the viewer to "Like that Smash button!" and then berates himself for getting the phrase wrong.
• Sanity Ball: Whether the Screenwriter is an incompetent lunatic and the Producer is the straight man whose sound advice is ignored, the Screenwriter is a good writer who is forced to dumb down his scripts by the meddling Producer, or both are hopelessly inept depends on whatever Ryan thinks is funnier.
• Sanity Slippage: The Screenwriter is left slightly unhinged by attempting to turn Cats into a movie.
• Saved by Canon: In the Obi-Wan Kenobi pitch meeting, the Producer asks why Obi-Wan doesn't kill a defeated Darth Vader after realizing that his friend is truly dead, to which the Screenwriter explains is because "Vader needs to appear in several movies after this". It also comes up in the pitch for Black Widow (2021), when the Screenwriter explains that he's going to have Natasha survive multiple car crashes and falls that should kill her because she can't die until Avengers: Endgame.
• Saved by the Awesome:
  • Mocked in the Fantastic Four (2005) pitch meeting, in which the Screenwriter justifies the police's decision to let Ben go despite planning on arresting him for the chaos he caused on the bridge, simply because the onlookers clapped for him.
  • Also mocked in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, in which it's pointed out that Indy's heroism clearing him of suspicion of working for the Communists is rather hard to swallow when there isn't even any proof of that heroism.
• Say My Name: During the John Wick: Chapter 4 pitch meeting, the Producer is doubtful that Caine and John saying each other's names to each other for the duration of the movie could be very cool. The Screenwriter demonstrates by saying, "Producer Guy," and the Producer responds, "Screenwriter Guy," and immediately agrees that that was cool. Later in the pitch, after the Screenwriter invokes an old Hollywood tradition, there's an extended back-and-forth of the two saying each other's names with increasingly serious expressions.
• School of No Studying: In Fantastic Four (2015), Reed gets a scholarship from Sue's adoptive father to go to an institute of some kind, but is never shown studying.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: The pitch meeting for Back to the Future shows the Producer's assistant, Larry, show up in the middle to deliver something to him. Only problem? He shows up when the Screenwriter explains Marty's plan to get George and Lorraine to fall in love with each other at the dance, with the worst word choices possible.
  Larry: (enters the room with some papers; clears throat) Sorry, sir, can I just, uh-
  Producer: Just a minute, Larry. (to the Screenwriter) So, what's- what's the plan?
  Screenwriter: Well, he's gonna pretend to force himself on his own mother, and then his father is gonna come in and beat him off, and that's really gonna impress the mom, and then she's gonna want to hook up with him instead of her own son.
  Larry: (stands silently) ... ... ...okay, I'm gonna go?
  Producer: You sure? You can stick around.
  Larry: (awkwardly leaves) No no, I incest- I insist.
  Producer: (to the Screenwriter) Not sure what that guy's problem was.
• Screw Yourself: Defied in the Loki (2021) pitch meeting— the Producer asks if the Screenwriter can imagine falling in love with yourself, and the Screenwriter answers he can with a smile. The Producer immediately shoots him down, and the Screenwriter clarifies, "I can imagine it, obviously, since I wrote it. Also, we're not the same person. I have glasses."
• Self-Deprecation: During their Jurassic Park (1993) pitch, the Screenwriter says that Hammond will interact with a recorded version of himself. The producer asks what kind of idiot would try and pass off a video of him talking to himself as entertainment.
  • In the "Pitch Meetings" pitch meeting, the Screenwriter has a list of several different actors who could portray the screenwriter and producer characters, all of whom are Ryan George with a different shirt and glasses (Bryan Peorge, George Ray-on, Gryan Lorge, Christian Bale, Flyin' Rorge, and Rayan Giorgee). The Producer hates all of them and says they have punchable faces, then asks why they're all smiling so much and says it makes them look like crazy people. The same pitch also mercilessly mocks basically everything else about the series: the dated catchphrases, its low-budget nature, the fact that Screenwriter and Producer don't age, and Ryan (supposedly) being in bad shape.
    Screenwriter: I'm not gonna start de-aging myself, this isn't a Marvel movie.
    Producer: That's a good point. If this was a Marvel movie, you'd be in much better shape.
    Screenwriter: Oh, that kinda hurts my feelings.
    Producer: I mean, you're no Chris Evans.
    Screenwriter: Sugar tastes good, what am I supposed to do?
• Self-Insert: Bill from It: Chapter Two being a Screenwriter making a horror movie for Warner Bros. is played as this; the Screenwriter even slips up and calls him "me."
• Selfless Wish: Defied in the Wonder Woman 1984 pitch meeting, in which, after being questioned by the Producer, the Screenwriter admits that the story only works if every single one of the billions of people around the world universally wishes for something "selfish and violent," and not selfless wishes or even understandable ones (being cured of their disease, feeding their starving child, world peace, etc.)
• Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: Namedropped in the second part of the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows pitch meeting, when the Producer proposes that the Slytherins being treated as the "evil" house results in most of them being evil.
• Sequel Hook:
  • The pitch meeting for The Last Airbender makes fun of the decision to tease a sequel by introducing Azula at the end of the movie, in spite of how terrible the finished product ended up being.
  • The pitch meeting for Zack Snyder's Justice League has Martian Manhunter show up and tell Batman that he's "here for any sequels you might be making," in a scene that the Producer says "feels tacked-on."
• Sequelitis: invokedLampshaded in the pitch meeting for Home Sweet Home Alone, the sixth installment of the franchise, by having a cameo from Buzz McCallister which prompts this exchange:
  Producer: He's from the first movie!
  Screenwriter: Yeah he is!
  Producer: And the second movie!
  Screenwriter: I think so!
  Producer: And the third movie!
  Screenwriter: No, wasn't in that one I don't think.
  Producer: The fourth movie?
  Screenwriter: Yes, but played by a different actor.
  Producer: Still pretty cool. The fifth movie?
  Screenwriter: No.
  Producer: The sixth one?
  Screenwriter: That's this movie.
  Producer: He's from this movie!
  Screenwriter: He sure is, sir!
  Producer: Oh, being from this movie is tight!
• Signature Line: "Super easy, barely an inconvenience."
• Series Continuity Error: In the pitch meeting for Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, the Screenwriter protests that as popular as Professor McGonagall is, she hasn't yet been born as of her cameo in the movie. He's forced to give in when the Producer threatens to set Quebec on fire after he completes his plan to buy Canada, and agrees to McGonagall's cameo.
• Shaped Like Itself:
  • In the 300 pitch meeting.
    Producer: Tight thongs are tight!
  • During the pitch for The Rings of Power:
    Screenwriter: Anyway the elves need this stuff [mithril] or they're gonna die.
    Producer: Why?
    Screenwriter: 'Cause they'll die if they don't get it.
  • Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Sea of Monsters:
    Screenwriter: Turns out [Luke] didn't die at the end of the last movie, he's completely fine.
    Producer: Oh! How did he survive?
    Screenwriter: By not dying.
    Producer: That'll do it.
  • In the Day Shift pitch meeting, the Producer asks why vampire fangs are worth a lot of money, and the Screenwriter answers it's because of how much money they're worth.
  • In the Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom pitch meeting, the Producer describes blood magic as "the bloodiest kind of magic."
• Shipper on Deck: In the Batman (1989) pitch meeting, the Producer isn't thrilled when Alfred tries to ship Bruce with Vicki Vale, especially because Alfred got Vicki drunk, resulting in Bruce having sex with her.
• Shoot the Shaggy Dog: In Army of the Dead, Kate gets everyone else killed while trying to save her friend Geeta, only for Geeta to presumably die in the helicopter crash at the end.
• Shout-Out: Pitch Meeting was inspired by John Mulaney's stand up on rewatching Back to the Future, and describing what the pitch must've been like. So several jokes from the Back to the Future pitch meeting reference some of the jokes Mulaney makes (Such as how Marty's friendship with an elderly disgraced scientist is never explained or expanded upon).
• Show, Don't Tell:
  • Inverted in The Last Airbender pitch meeting, in which the Screenwriter mentions having the protagonists free several villages offscreen, narrating about Sokka and Yue falling in love and telling about the Moon Spirit in extensive detail. It is then parodied by some out-of-nowhere narration detailing how Screenwriter Guy and Producer Guy apparently save the world from aliens and become co-Presidents of the United States off-screen.
    Screenwriter: Well, I'm following the first rule of screenwriting, sir; tell, don't show.
    Producer: Oh, I think you got that backwards.
  • The Screenwriter uses the same phrase in the Avatar pitch meeting, when describing why he decides to have much of the exposition come from Jake giving video reports.
  • Played straight in John Wick, in which it's mentioned that the film hints at elements of how the criminal underworld works rather than telling about them outright. Ryan expressed appreciation for the film's use of this trope when revisiting the pitch meeting.
• Shown Their Work:
  • In The Matrix pitch meeting, the Screenwriter describes his idea about how the machines are using humans as a neural network, only for the Producer to not understand the concept and make him change it to the humans being used as batteries so the audience can understand it. This is actually what happened when the Wachowskis pitched The Matrix to Warner Bros.
  • In the Back to the Future pitch meeting, the Producer suggests calling the movie "Spaceman From Pluto". This really was the title that then-CEO of Universal Sid Sheinberg wanted to call the movie.
  • In the A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) pitch meeting, he brings up the original ending of the movie, which would have heavily implied that the events of the film were all just a bad dream that the main character had.
  • The Hancock pitch opens up right out of the gate with Screenwriter stating his initial name for the film is Tonight, He Comes (with the joke being how dirty the name sounds, and how the final title doesn't sound better). This is actually the original title.
• Sincerity Mode: The Producer is capable of this on occasion. For example, in the Point Break (1991) Pitch Meeting, he asks why Bodhi would abandon his safe and effective "gone in 90 seconds" plan and go after the bank's vault in the final robbery of the film. When the Screenwriter replies that it's because this is the climax and he has to raise the stakes, the Producer replies by saying "That's fair" with complete sincerity.
• Skewed Priorities:
  • Dieter from The Lost World: Jurassic Park gets called out for wandering off into a dinosaur-infested forest because he needs to pee.
    Producer: Risking your life so nobody sees your ding-dong is tight.
  • Hank McCoy in X-Men: First Class testing a serum to disguise his (at that point very mild) mutant disfiguration the night before an important mission is described as such. "Is he worried the bad guys are going to make fun of his weird feet?"
  • In the Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen pitch meeting, the Screenwriter says he can't rewatch the first one because he put a bagel in his DVD player, put both of them in the oven and set it to broil... because he still wanted the bagel, destroying an expensive piece of technology for a bagel that costs a dollar or less.
  • In the Moonfall pitch meeting, the protagonist refuses to join an effort to save the world because he has more important things to do. He goes to bed in the top of a building after barely escaping a tsunami rather than try to think about getting to safety. It is also revealed that the project to make an EMP to end the nanobot threat was scrapped due to budgetary concerns.
  • In the Interstellar pitch meeting, Brand and Doyle are described as taking this to Too Dumb to Live levels. Brand delays escaping from the giant wave because she wants to get the data, even though the planet is obviously uninhabitable. Doyle gets swept away due to looking at the wave rather than running.
• Slow-Paced Beginning: invoked
  • Inverted in the Mortal Kombat (2021) pitch meeting, when the Screenwriter says that the movie will be all downhill after the intense beginning, and the Producer agrees, saying that once they get the audience's attention, they can stop trying.
  • Played straight in Fantastic Four (2015), in which it takes over an hour to get to the point at which the eponymous characters gain powers.
• Smart Ball: Depending on the situation, especially how funny it would be, the Producer or Scriptwriter may suddenly become a lot smarter than usual.
  • During the John Wick meeting, the Producer actually thinks to look up Baba Yaga, the namesake for John's nickname, and wonders why he's being named after a hideous crone when his name's supposed to be a synonym for "the boogeyman."
  • During the Aladdin (2019) pitch meeting, the Producer asks the Screenwriter why they're remaking a beloved animated film despite the fact that they're unlikely to improve upon it.
  • During the Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald pitch meeting, the Screenwriter, who usually forgets basic information established in previous films and/or the source material he's adapting, points out the Series Continuity Error caused by McGonagall's cameo.
• Soft Water: Discussed in the The Tomorrow War pitch meeting, in which the Producer asks if falling hundreds of feet into a swimming pool would be deadly, but the Screenwriter insists the people who landed in the pool are fine.
• Some of My Best Friends Are X: When the Producer calls the Screenwriter out on his portrayal of people with mental health issues in Bird Box, the Screenwriter insists that one of his best friends is mentally ill and is fine with it. The Producer notes that this doesn't work that way.
• Special Edition Title: Actually Special Edition Thumbnail. The thumbnails for each episode are pictures of the main characters with enormously enlarged eyes. For Bird Box, they went with a picture of Sandra Bullock blindfolded because that's how she spends most of the film, but gave her enormously enlarged lips instead. With the Spider-Man pitches, they add cartoony pupils and a mouth to Spidey's mask in the thumbnails since it already has oversized eyes.
• Spectacular Spinning: In the final episode of The Book of Boba Fett, one of the cyborg kids will do a spin before shooting, which is "gonna look very cool, possibly". When the Producer questions the practical purpose of a spin move that'll make him dizzy, the Screenwriter tells him to get off his back.
• Spoiler Title: Subverted with the Mission: Impossible title. The Producer assumes that the title means that the heroes fail to accomplish the mission, but the Screenwriters points out that they're successful nearly every time.
• Spoofed with Their Own Words: As part of the Accentuate the Negative aspect of pitch meetings, any especially cheesy or hackneyed dialogue is repeated during pitches, sometimes accompanied by a "Not Making This Up" Disclaimer.
  • The Producer inserts a post-credit scene in Morbius (2022) where the Vulture winds up in Morbius's universe, to the Screenwriter's confusion. The dialogue that the Producer includes in the scene is quoted from the movie. The Screenwriter even asks if the Producer wants him to spruce up any of dialogue, which the Producer declines.
  • For Game of Thrones Season 8, the Screenwriter says that Daenerys "kind of forgot about the Iron Fleet and Euron's forces, but they certainly haven't forgotten about her", a line taken nearly word-for-word from one of the creators explaining Daenerys's forgetfulness.
• Spotlight-Stealing Squad:
  • When asked whether Cole Young and his family from Mortal Kombat (2021) will take time away from the Mortal Kombat characters fans came to see, the Screenwriter says, "Oh, most definitely! A ton of it!"
  • When the Producer asks if Wolverine is being sent back in time just as an excuse to make him the main character in X-Men: Days of Future Past, the Screenwriter says, "You're damn right!"
• Stalker without a Crush: The Producer is unnerved when the Screenwriter tells him that Sonic spent an entire decade stalking the citizens of Green Hills, until he's told that Sonic did it "in a cute way, it's not horrifying". Then, during the pitch for the sequel, the Screenwriter tells the Producer, who now says that "watching people from a distance is tight", that it's creepy when he does it but Tails watching Sonic from across the universe is fine because he's cute.
• Stalking is Love:
  • After the Screenwriter brings up how Peter stalked Gwen Stacy every day while they were broken up in The Amazing Spider-Man 2, the Producer describes stalking as "a super romantic gesture," and the Screenwriter agrees, as long as the stalker isn't ugly.
  • In the pitch meeting for The Nightmare Before Christmas, Sally's stalking an oblivious Jack is described as "romantic," and Jack constantly ignoring her is described as "super romantic."
• Start X to Stop X:
  • In the Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban pitch meeting, Dementors, foul creatures that will suck the souls of anyone who get close to them, are sent to track down an escaped convict to prevent him from killing Harry, thus endangering the students in order to protect a student.
  • In the Hancock pitch meeting, Mary tries to prevent Hancock from exposing her identity to her husband by getting into a superpowers fight with Hancock, resulting in the fight eventually spilling over to just in front of Ray's workplace.
• Stating the Simple Solution: Comes up often. Usually, the Screenwriter will describe characters doing something elaborate and dramatic but totally nonsensical when there is a much more straightforward solution to the problem that the Producer will point out.
  • A variation of this happens in the Venom (2018) Pitch Meeting, only directed at the Screenwriter himself as opposed to the characters in the film. At the beginning of the film, the two Symbiotes land in Malaysia, and Venom is taken back to the lab, and Riot escapes. The Screenwriter then talks about all the legwork he had to do in order to get Eddie Brock into the lab so that he could bond with Venom as well as get Riot into the lab so that it could bond with Drake.^note So a scientist working for Drake goes and talks to Eddie Brock to report about Drake performing experiments on Homeless people, and helps him break into the lab so that he could take pictures of it, as opposed to simply taking the pictures herself. Then Eddie finds the Venom Symbiote and bonds with it. Meanwhile, Riot latches onto an elderly woman in Malaysia and spends six months aimlessly wandering around before latching onto a young girl who is about to fly to America. The young girl then somehow gets into the secure lab so that Riot can bond with Drake. The screenwriter even says that it will probably be the "least fun" part of the movie but he needed to somehow get everyone into their positions so that the plot could get going in earnest. The Producer points out that he could eliminate the need to do all that legwork by simply having Venom be the one who escapes at the beginning. He refuses to change it because he "doesn't want to."
  • In the Red Notice Pitch Meeting, the Producer points out how needlessly convoluted the plan is to find the third golden egg and asks if Dwayne Johnson and Gal Gadot could've just followed Ryan Reynolds to the egg. The Screenwriter has a moment of Stunned Silence before awkwardly saying no and moving on.
  • For the Spider-Man: No Way Home Pitch Meeting, when the Screenwriter states Peter keeps wanting the spell to be changed, the Producer suggests Strange just stop casting for a minute so they can talk out the details.
  • In the Batman Returns Pitch Meeting, the Screenwriter explains Max Shreck's convoluted plan to secretly take over Gotham's power system, and the Producer asks why he doesn't just buy the current power plant.
  • In the Space Jam Pitch Meeting, the Screenwriter explains how Bugs Bunny will trick the aliens by putting a fake note into a rulebook which says they can't take the Looney Tunes captive without giving them a chance to defend themselves. The Producer then asks why Bugs doesn't just add a note saying they can't take the Tunes captive at all. The Screenwriter answers, "Because the movie has to happen."
  • In the Space Jam: A New Legacy Pitch Meeting, after the Screenwriter mentions that the Justice League will get a cameo, the Producer points out that they could probably rescue LeBron's son if he just asked them.
  • In the Night Swim, the Screenwriter asks what he'd do if he found a haunted pool, and the Producer says he'd not swim in it. When the Screenwriter replies that this would undo the whole premise, the Producer apologizes and when asked again, claims he wouldn't know what to do.
• Stealth Insult:
  • During the Star Wars Holiday Special pitch, when the Screenwriter is describing in detail the weird scene where Chewbacca's father watches a VR video of his "fantasy":
    Producer: So we're saying- we're saying that this fantasy is...
    Screenwriter: A space lady in a kaleidoscope singing about making a moment last forever.
    Producer: Well, you certainly are accomplishing that last part.
    Screenwriter: Thank you!
  • When the Screenwriter asks the Producer what he thinks of Eternals, he has this to say:
    Screenwriter: So, what do you think?
    Producer: Well, it sounds like it could be a fantastic series!
    Screenwriter: This is-this is a movie.
    Producer: I said what I said.
• Stealth Pun:
  • When discussing the creepy and misogynistic behavior of the cast of The Big Bang Theory, the Producer says that he hopes that there won't be a social movement to hold people accountable for that kind of behavior. The Screenwriter says "Me too."
  • Similarly, in the Ghost Busters 1984 pitch meeting, after the Screenwriter mentions Venkman trying to hook up with one of his students, the following exchange occurs
    Producer: Using your position of power to hook up with girls is tight.
    Screenwriter: I do notice that happens a lot in this town.
    Producer: Me too.
• Stealthy Colossus: In the Jurassic Park (1993) pitch meeting, the T-rex manages to sneak up on the raptors at the end even though its footsteps caused mini-earthquakes earlier on in the film. The Producer asks if the T-Rex's "character arc" is about learning how to be sneaky, and the Screenwriter says yes.
• Strangled by the Red String: invoked In the pitch for Stranger Things, the Screenwriter is unsure why Mike has a crush on Eleven, other than being "really into powerful women."
  • It's also invoked in the Jurassic World pitch, when the Screenwriter states that Claire and Owen are suddenly going to kiss in the middle of the pterodactyl attack. When the Producer asks why, the Screenwriter states that it's because they're both attractive.
• Strawman Has a Point: invoked In Wish (2023), the Producer acknowledges that King Magnifico maybe has a point that the main character's grandfather's wish to inspire people is too vague and potentially harmful, but the Screenwriter doesn't want people to agree with him.
• Strictly Formula:
  • In the pitch meeting for Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, both the Producer and the Screenwriter agree that since it's a Pirates of the Caribbean, they already know how the plot's going to go. Though the Producer asks the Screenwriter to elaborate anyway.
  • The idea that a Marvel movie or TV series has to end with either a big fight against a faceless, generic army, a special-effects heavy climactic battle between two characters, and/or a sky beam, is discussed in multiple meetings.
  • Transformers: Age of Extinction's third act falls under the formula that the screenwriter describes as, first, "Our standard absolute visual mess," then "Things explode, metal punches metal, good guys win, guns, boobs, America, victory."
• Strong as They Need to Be: When Loki in Loki (2021) manages to move an entire skyscraper with his mind, the Producer asks if he could always do that, prompting the Screenwriter to admit he just makes Loki as strong or as weak as he needs for the plot.
• Stunned Silence:
  • The Producer goes silent after hearing that in John Wick, the villains kill the eponymous character's dog.
  • In the Breaking Dawn pitch meeting, this is the Producer's reaction when he learns that the awesome fight sequence at the climax was just a vision.
  • After hearing in No Time to Die "So, Bond dies.", the Producer spends several seconds in silence before asking "...what?!"
  • The Screenwriter is stunned into silence for a moment when the Producer points out a major plot hole in Mulan (2020): Mulan steals her father's armor and joins the army in his stead because his bad leg means that he's unfit to fight, only for the army commander to establish a few scenes later that anyone who can't keep up with the training will be sent home. This being the case, Mulan's father would most likely have been invalided out almost immediately, meaning that she didn't need to bother with her plan in the first place.
• Stupid Sacrifice:
  • In the A Quiet Place pitch meeting, the Screenwriter decides to have Lee perform a Heroic Sacrifice to draw the alien's attention rather than throw his axe to cause a noise somewhere else and distract it, because sacrifices are dramatic.
  • In Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, Leta Lestrange's Heroic Sacrifice in the climax is said to amount to her offering to handle a situation that she can't handle, then getting herself killed.
  • In Avengers: Endgame, the producer asks why Captain Marvel, the most powerful hero on the battlefield and the one with the highest chance of survival, doesn't just use the gauntlet and snap away Thanos' forces when she has the chance. The screenwriter says that she doesn’t so Tony Stark can have his Heroic Sacrifice.
  • In Captain America: The First Avenger, Steve crashing the plane into the ocean is described as a plot device to get him frozen so that he can return in the present day.
  • In Kong: Skull Island one soldier sacrifices himself for no apparent reason, and ends up accomplishing nothing.
  • In Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen, in ancient times, several Primes (the only ones who can kill the Fallen) sacrificed themselves to seal the Matrix of Leadership ("the key to the Fallen's death machine") right next to said "death machine."
  • In the Stranger Things Season 4 pitch meeting, the Screenwriter says that Eddie dies heroically by distracting a horde of bats that probably didn't need to be distracted at that time.
• Subverted Catchphrase:
  • During the Man of Steel pitch meeting, the Screenwriter says he doesn't want to deal with the consequences of Metropolis being destroyed because it would be "super difficult, very much an inconvenience", the opposite of the series' best-known line.
  • Subverted for the Space Jam: A New Legacy pitch:
    Producer: It's gonna be hard for audiences to feel any stakes if the scoring is arbitrary.
    Screenwriter: Actually...yep.
    [later]
    Producer: It's gonna be hard to end on a happy note with Bugs Bunny dying.
    Screenwriter: Actually it's gonna be super easy, barely an inconvenience.
  • The pitch meetings usually begin with the Screenwriter saying, "Yes, sir, I do," in response to the Producer asking if he has a movie to pitch, At the start of the Transformers pitch meeting, the Screenwriter instead says, "Actually, no, sir, I don't," then explains that he was told the producer was looking for "feature-length commercials with kind of a storyline." The Producer then tells the Screenwriter that's what he calls "movies."
  • In the Gods of Egypt pitch meeting, Set changes the rules to the afterlife so that only the wealthy can buy their way in with riches, which the Producer comments is going to be tough if everyone's enslaved. The Screenwriter says, "Actually... yep," and the Producer says he expected the Screenwriter to say something else.
• Sucky School: During the Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire pitch meeting, the Producer asks if the teachers are going to step in and help when a dragon breaks loose and starts chasing Harry. The Screenwriter assures him they won't, which the Producer admits matches their track record. Later when Cedric dies, the Producer casually states he's honestly shocked it took four years for a student to die at Hogwarts.
• Superman Stays Out of Gotham:
  • In the Iron Man 3 pitch meeting, not even the Screenwriter knows why the rest of the Avengers didn't help Tony out in this film.
  • In the Captain America: The Winter Soldier pitch meeting, this is discussed. The Screenwriter wanted to include the other Avengers, but the Producer overrules him, saying they don't have the budget for it. The Screenwriter laments that it will be difficult to make solo movies from here on out.
  • The Spider-Man: Far From Home pitch meeting has the Producer asking about the various living Avengers that can help Spider-Man fight these new Elemental enemies, and the Screenwriter points out that they can't because this is Spider-Man's movie.
  • The Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom has Arthur respond to Black Manta threatening to destroy the world by getting his evil brother Orm rather than the rest of the Justice League "Because!"
• Superpower Lottery: In X-Men, Senator Kelly being hit by Magneto's mutation machine gives him the power to liquefy himself and slip through the bars of his cell. The Screenwriter says that Magneto couldn't have predicted what powers Kelly would get, or else he would have responded accordingly. He admits that if Kelly had somehow become strong enough to kill Magneto, "Magneto would have died."
• Sure, Let's Go with That:
  • In the meeting for Jurassic World, the writer asks the producer to imagine the next step up from a park, and the producer suggests "I don’t know, the world?". The writer then says that yes, the new movie is called Jurassic World...while holding a treatment titled Jurassic Circus.
  • In the Disney+ pitch meeting, the screenwriter tries to explain that the "+" in the title isn't to appeal to nerds, and that it just means "more," from the Latin "plūs". When the producer thinks it's the Latin that is appealing to nerds, the screenwriter starts to correct him again, but then stops himself mid-sentence:
    Producer: Ohhhh, okay. I see what you're going for.
    Screenwriter: Yeah, you do?
    Producer: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Nerds also love Latin— we're gonna have them in the palms of our hands.
    Screenwriter: Well, no— ... okay. [smiles]
• Surprise Incest: Lampshaded in the Return of the Jedi pitch meeting. After hearing that Leia will be revealed as Luke's sister, the Producer says "that kiss they shared is real weird now," and the Screenwriter cheerfully agrees.
• Survival Mantra: In the Breaking Dawn pitch, the Producer is disturbed by Jacob "imprinting" on a newborn baby. The Screenwriter reminds him that this movie will make a lot of money, and he relents. When the imprinting topic is revisited later, the Producer is clearly having a hard time accepting it and mutters "money-money-money-money-money" to himself to focus on that.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute:
  • The pitch meeting for The Suicide Squad draws similarities between different characters from it and Suicide Squad (2016), namely Deadshot and Bloodsport, and Killer Croc and King Shark.
  • In the pitch meeting for Quantum of Solace, the Producer immediately asks if Spectre is the villainous organization in the film. The Screenwriter asks if the Producer has the rights to legally use Spectre, and when the Producer says no, the Screenwriter has Quantum, "a completely different organization with the exact same concept," be the villain in the film.
  • In the pitch meeting for season four of Stranger Things, the Producer assumes the Big Bad is Voldemort. When the Screenwriter insists that Vecna is nothing like Voldemort, even if he's a powerful evil magic guy who hates non-magic people, was defeated by the teenage cast years ago and has returned seeking revenge.
    Producer: Does he have a nose?
    Screenwriter: Shit!
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: Frequently. Lampshaded in the video for The Matrix Reloaded;
  Screenwriter Guy: This way we get to show off our new CGI technology that does not make invokedhumans look like rubber in any way!
  Studio Executive Guy: Kinda suspicious of you to specify that unprompted...
• Sustained Misunderstanding: In the Independence Day pitch, the Producer doesn't understand that dogfights don't involve actual dogs. Screenwriter decides to stop trying to clarify and move on with the story, and at the end, when asking the Producer how he feels about the movie, the Producer says he likes it except the confusing part with the dogs.
• Swapped Roles:
  • After the Screenwriter mentions in the The Emoji Movie pitch that his dream pitch for the main character is T.J. Miller, believing such casting is impossible, the Producer is the one to state how it would be "super easy, barely an inconvenience".
  • Late in the Star Trek Into Darkness pitch meeting, after the Screenwriter and Producer mention how Kirk's Heroic Sacrifice is a role reversal of Spock's from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, you can see the Producer wearing the Screenwriter's clothes and sitting in his place, while the Screenwriter has the Producer's clothes and is in his place, showing that the two characters switched spots.
• Swiss-Cheese Security:
  • The computer room in the Mission: Impossible has all sorts of security devices, but no one thought to put in a security camera.
  • In Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Namor inexplicably bypasses all of Wakanda's advanced water-based security to meet with Shuri and Ramonda.

Tropes T-Z

• Take a Third Option: In the Spectre pitch meeting, James' ability to not only save the girl but also survive in the climax is said to be "super easy, barely an inconvenience."
• Take That!: Has its own page.
• Take That, Audience!: In Velma, the Screenwriter states that the series takes potshots at adults watching animation despite being the target audience. The Producer then turns to the camera and tells the viewer to suck it, only to quickly break character and apologize as he states that he genuinely appreciates his audience.
• Taking the Fight Outside: invoked Subverted in the The Matrix Resurrections Pitch Meeting. Producer Guy asks Screenwriter Guy if he wants to take this outside when he notices the Reality Subtext in the movie, but it turns out the two of them just got some fresh air.
• Tap on the Head: The Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl pitch meeting has the Producer ask whether Will's master bashing Jack on the head and knocking him unconscious will cause brain damage, but the Screenwriter says it causes the "wacky" kind of head trauma without permanent damage.
• Technobabble: If a movie makes use of this, there's a good chance the pitch meeting will lampshade it.
  Screenwriter: [James Bond] gets approached by the CIA to help find this Russian scientist guy who helped develop a bioweapon involving nanobots.
  Producer: Nanobots?
  Screenwriter: Yeah, see, nanobots are this thing where if you write "nanobots" in the script, they can do whatever you want and you don't really have to explain it.
  [later]
  Producer: Well, I guess [James Bond] could try using that EMP watch to disable [the poison nanobots].
  Screenwriter: No, he can't do that.
  Producer: Why not?
  Screenwriter: Well, 'cause... [stammering] nanobots!
• Teens Are Monsters: When the Producer hears that the bullies in SHAZAM! hit a disabled kid with their car and then kick him in the stomach, he says, "Those aren't bullies- those are literal psychopaths."
• Tempting Fate:
  • Almost every video ends with the Screenwriter and/or Executive saying something that will get proven wrong by a screenshot of an article in the next shot.
  • It's fairly common for the Producer to offer feedback (usually positive) on one of the Screenwriter's ideas for a character or plot element under the assumption that it will be important to the story, only to find that the Screenwriter has virtually no plans to use what they'd just discussed.
  • The Producer will often express the hope that certain elements of the plot won't be criticized, or that problematic elements of older films will age well.
  • In the Hancock pitch meeting, the Producer has a hard time grasping Will Smith playing a man with a Hair-Trigger Temper who becomes violent when he gets angry. Fast forward to 2022, when Will Smith slapped Chris Rock at the Oscars.
  • For Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore, the Producer has Grindelwald recast so as to avoid the film being associated with Johnny Depp's controversial baggage, only for Ezra Miller to get arrested twice in Hawaii.
  • The Writer for Meg 2: The Trench dismisses the idea of an unrealistic portrayal of the protagonist swimming unprotected deep in the ocean because audiences will be unaware of the concept of crush depth. The Producer comments that something "really wacky" would have to happen for a mass education on the subject; the film was released less than two months after the OceanGate submersible implosion put exactly that subject into the news.
  • The pitch meeting for The Flash (2023) has the Producer confident that the film will get out ahead of the multiverse trend, since the pitch meeting takes place in 2014, assuming nothing goes wrong. At the end, he predicts the film will be a success unless someone goes on "a violent crime spree." Both times, he ends up cursing the film.
  • The pitch meeting for Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom has the Producer and the Screenwriter confident that the DCEU will not be coming to an end, and thus the last scene in it won't be Orm eating a cockroach. This time, there isn't one screenshot of an article, but more than a dozen of the various problems plaguing the DCEU and leading to James Gunn rethinking the 10-year plan for it.
• That Came Out Wrong: The Producer frequently declares that something is tight in a way that sounds incredibly gross or suspicious, which usually elicits a squicked-out reaction from the Screenwriter.
  • In the pitch meeting for Ant-Man and the Wasp, this happens when discussing Janet's quantum powers.
    Screenwriter: Janet is going to make Ghost feel better by using her (Janet's) fingers.
    Producer: (excited) Ohhh!
    Screenwriter: Not like that.
    Producer: (disappointed) Oh.
  • Happens again in the pitch meeting for The Polar Express.
    Screenwriter: But when he gets into a stranger's vehicle in the middle of the night, his whole life is going to change.
    Producer: (horrified) Oh god!
    Screenwriter: No, like in a fun, Christmas-y way.
    Producer: Oh thank god.
  • And again in the meeting for Argylle.
    Producer: Put a cute little cat front and centre, shove these trailers down people's throats 'til they're sick of them.
    Screenwriter: All right.
    Producer: Shoving things down people's throats 'til they're sick is tight.
    (Screenwriter Guy stares at Producer Guy with a deeply worried expression for a full five seconds)
    Producer: Don't tell HR I said that one.
• That Makes Me Feel Angry: Generally if the Producer straight up announces how a given plot development makes him feel, you can rest assured it's either an Intended Audience Reaction that didn't work in real life, or it's not what the Screenwriter was going for at all.
• Theory of Narrative Causality: Frequently the Producer will question why something happens, and the Writer can only respond with "Because", "That's what we are going with!", etc. to point out things that happen solely because of plot necessity.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: In-Universe:
  • Producer Guy thinks that Huntress should be the main character of Birds of Prey (2020), but relents on making Harley Quinn the protagonist instead when Screenwriter Guy points out that Huntress has not proven to have mass market appeal yet.
  • Producer Guy thinks that Kro, the lead Deviant villain from Eternals, sounds interesting and would be cool to see more fleshed out, but the film's time constraints mean he just gets killed off in the third act.
  • The producer points out that in Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore, Jacob's subplot and presence makes no sense and achieve little, but having the Qilin at the end kneel before Jacob would fix this by making Grindelwald and his follower confront the idea that a muggle can be pure of heart, and pay off why Dumbledore insisted Jacob come along because he's fundamentally a good person.
  • In Rebel Moon, the Producer is fascinated by the robot that does a Heel–Face Turn near the start, but is disappointed when the robot runs away and doesn't appear again until the end of the movie.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: In-Universe:
  • Producer Guy thinks that Rosalie's tragic backstory from Eclipse sounds like a much more interesting movie than the one they're making and wonders if that's a bad sign.
  • The Producer is much more interested in the Japanese and American pilot putting aside their differences to survive against King Kong and becoming friends than he is in the rest of Kong: Skull Island.
  • In the The Rise of Skywalker pitch meeting, Hux being The Mole for The Resistance intrigues the Producer, but the Screenwriter says that this was done due to Hux suffering Badass Decay in The Last Jedi and needing a more competent replacement.
  • In the The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, the story cuts away before Bucky's old Japanese friend reacts to hearing the news that Bucky killed the man's son during Bucky's days as the Winter Soldier. The Screenwriter is rather disappointed that a plot thread that was built up for the entire season never gets resolved.
  • In the Jurassic World Dominion pitch meeting, the Screenwriter decides not to make the movie about the dinosaurs overrunning the world, but about what he thinks the fans want- "a kidnapping plot and a bug problem."
  • In Soul, the Producer finds The Great Before to be more interesting than the misadventures used to pad the runtime at the midway point.
  • In The Super Mario Bros. Movie, the Screenwriter brings up how Peach recognizes Mario as a fellow human and that she was brought to the Mushroom Kingdom as a baby, but refuses to elaborate on that.
• This Is Gonna Suck: At the end of the pitch for Cruella, the Screenwriter confidently and enthusiastically announces that they're going to spend a ton of money on music for the movie — "It's gonna cost you a fortune!" The Producer utters an "Oh... uh oh, oh no" before a cut to an article saying Cruella reportedly cost $200 million.
• Time Skip:
  • The pitch meeting for Solo makes it clear that the Screenwriter has no interest in showing Han's time in the Imperial army, and it's just an excuse to pass enough time for Q'ira to join up with Dryden Voss.
  • The pitch meeting for Bird Box has the Producer skeptical about how nothing apparently happened in the five-year timeskip.
• Title Drop: Whenever the Screenwriter mentions the name of the work while pitching it, the Producer will exclaim, "That's the name of the movie!" For example, in the Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales pitch meeting, the Screenwriter justifies having Salazar spare Henry to send a message to Jack because Salazar can't leave the general area and "dead men tell no tales." The Producer comments, "He said the name of the movie!"
• Toilet Humor:
  • The Screenwriter says that Day Shift will have a Running Gag of Brad peeing his pants out of fright throughout the movie, and the Producer loves the idea.
    Producer: Oh, peepee!
    Screenwriter: Peepee!
    Producer: Peepee very funny! What about poopoo?
    Screenwriter: No poopoo. No poopoo.
    Producer: No poopoo? Just peepee? Okay.
  • In the Madame Web (2024) pitch meeting, the Screenwriter explains Cassie will go to Peru for a dump, and the Producer wonders why she's going all the way to Peru just to poop. The Screenwriter clarifies it's an exposition dump, causing the Producer to wonder if that means she's doing it on a canvas.
• Token Romance: In the Jurassic World pitch:
  Screenwriter: Anyway, so then Claire and Owen kiss in the middle of this big attack.
  Producer: What? Why?
  Screenwriter: Oh, well, they're both attractive, so...they're in love now.
  Producer: Right, makes sense.
• Tom the Dark Lord:
  • In the Captain America: The First Avenger pitch meeting, the Producer complains that calling the Red Skull by his actual last name, Schmidt, is a lot less cool.
  • In Quantum of Solace, the Producer considers Dominic Greene's name to be rather boring compared to other James Bond Big Bads.
• Tone Shift: The Screenwriter is prone to those. For example in Pokémon: The First Movie he describes the lighthearted Pikachu's Vacation short before immediately following with "[The movie] begins with an omnipotent murder clone having a homicidal existential crisis". Many of those shifts make the Producer give an emphasized "Oh my god."
  Producer: Oh, my god. You really shifted the tone there. It's Jarring!
  Screenwriter: Oh, Whoops!
  Producer: Whoopsie!
• Too Dumb to Live:
  • In the The Amazing Spider-Man 2 pitch meeting, the Screenwriter decides to "fix" the problem of MJ ending up in danger by having Gwen go straight into danger herself. He also mentions that New Yorkers form crowds to watch Spider-Man as he fights dangerous supervillains.
    Producer: Wow, the people of New York have no sense of self-preservation.
  • A Quiet Place points out how, after Lee averted a disaster by taking the batteries out of his son Beau's toy, Beau later put the batteries back in and activated it, causing his death. It's pointed out that the rest of the family helped cause this by their negligence and poorly thought-out decision to bring Beau along, even though they've survived for three months. Evelyn getting pregnant and "bringing a screaming baby into the world" also is mentioned as being particularly foolish.
  • In Godzilla (2014), the military starts the timer on the atomic bomb before it reaches its final destination, just so the movie can have higher stakes.
  • In Kong: Skull Island, the helicopter pilots respond to Kong destroying a helicopter with a thrown tree by flying in close to him and shooting at him. Predictably, he destroys them all.
  • In Alien: Covenant, the cast is so dumb that the Screenwriter openly states how the movie would fail if anyone wasn't stupid. It gets to the point that when a cast member does something suicidally stupid (such as sticking their face into a xenomorph egg), the Producer just mutters "Okay".
  • In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1, Harry and his friends hide from the Death Eaters by going to the Weasley's house, which was destroyed by the Death Eaters in the previous film.
• Took a Level in Dumbass:
  • In the pitch meeting for Season 8 of Game of Thrones, the formerly intelligent Tyrion makes decisions like having the noncombatants hide in the crypts when the Night King(who can raise the dead) attacks, because the Screenwriter "need(s) things to happen really fast."
  • In the pitch meeting for Thor: Love and Thunder, Thor is "dumber than ever."
• Totally Radical: When pitching The Emoji Movie, the writer is fairly sure he’s got a handle on "cool young people talk".
• Touché : During the "Spider-Man leaves the MCU" Pitch Meeting, the Marvel producer points out to the Sony producer that Sony "doesn't know how to make a Spider-Man movie anymore, but when we do it we make a billion dollars." The Sony executive is quick to point out that they also made Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse which "is, like, a masterpiece!" to which both the screenwriter and the Marvel producer admit that it is indeed an awesome movie. When the Sony producer says that they also made Venom (2018) which is "just as great," however...
  Screenwriter Guy: invokedWell...
  Marvel Producer: Well...
  Sony producer: Well...
• Trailers Always Spoil: In the Venom (2018) pitch meeting, it's discussed when they mention the final scene and how it will be advertised.
  Producer: If there's one thing people want to see in a movie trailer, it's the final scene of a movie.
• Trivially Obvious:
  • As mentioned in Damned by Faint Praise, the Producer brings up how a returning character was in the previous movie when he doesn't have anything more positive to say about the character's implementation in the sequel.
  • During the pitch for Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (an Immediate Sequel to Mortal Kombat: The Movie), the Producer tells the Screenwriter that they had a "great response" to the first movie.
    Producer: You know, of all the movies that came out in 1995, everybody agreed that that was one of them!
    Screenwriter: Well, fantastic, 'cause this one's gonna pick up right after the end of the last movie, and it's also, you know, a movie, technically, kind of.
  • When the Screenwriter asks what the Producer thinks of Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, the Producer comments, "Well, it sounds like a movie."
  • Similarly, he says that The Little Mermaid (2023) "sounds like another live-action remake."
  • In the Maze Runner: The Death Cure, the Producer responds to Theo's reappearance and death by saying that he's one of the characters in the film.
  • In Rebel Moon, the Producer says, "it sounds like some content, that's for sure."
• Turbine Blender: The Producer is rather disturbed to hear that two people end up dying this way in The Incredibles.
• Twitchy Eye: During the Morbius (2022) pitch, the Producer excitedly reminds the Screenwriter that they're "basically in the MCU now, did you know?", and the Screenwriter points out that yes, everyone in the Sony offices keeps reminding him that, with a big smile on their faces "but with one eye twitching for some reason". The Producer responds by repeating that they're basically part of the MCU now, with a big smile and one eye twitching.
• Two-Part Trilogy: Lampshaded repeatedly in The Matrix Reloaded pitch, where the fact that the first Matrix was a fine standalone movie and the two sequels are basically the one sequel split up:
  Producer Guy: It does sound like a solid part one.
  Screenwriter Guy: Well, technically it's part two.
  Producer Guy: Of course, but also, absolutely not.
  Screenwriter Guy: Right.
• Uncanny Valley: invoked
  • The Screenwriter announces that alongside the mice and cockroaches with human faces, the cats in Cats are going to look like "if Snapchat filters came to life and had an extreme thirst for blood".
  • During the pitch for Sonic the Hedgehog (2020) the Screenwriter goes in-depth on how he wants Sonic to have this sort of appearance instead of the cartoonish look he has in the games. Despite the Producer's doubts about it, he insists that it will work... until they see the internet's unanimous dislike of the design.
• Uncertain Audience: invoked
  • When the Producer tells the Screenwriter that the fans of the books might not be happy to the changes he's made to Artemis Fowl, the Screenwriter responds by saying that they aren’t making the movie for them. When the Producer asks him who they are making the movie for, he dodges the question.
  • The Screenwriter decides to include "fully exposed duck boobs" twice at the beginning of Howard the Duck. The Producer asks if this movie with a talking duck is for kids, and the Screenwriter says he can't say; he's going to be all over the place with it. Later, when the Screenwriter describes a romantic scene between Beverly and Howard in bed, the Producer, appalled, asks who this movie's for.
  • After the Screenwriter finishes describing the plot of Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, the Producer declares that it sounds like a great horror movie, only to be informed that it's for "the little humans".
• Uncertain Doom: In the Army of the Dead pitch meeting, the Screenwriter is disappointed to realize that it's never shown whether Kate's friend, whom she ran off to rescue, thereby getting everyone else killed, survived the helicopter crash at the end, although she's presumed dead.
• Unexplained Recovery: In Season 4 of Stranger Things, Dr. Brenner comes back despite appearing to have been killed in Season 1. The Screenwriter explains that he survived by virtue of not explicitly dying onscreen.
• Unfortunate Implications: invoked The series often mocks the various ways movies and TV shows fall into this trope, often followed by a "Whoops!" "Whoopsie!" exchange.
  • One example is The Big Bang Theory pitch meeting, in which the Producer realizes that making fun of Raj being Indian might be racist, insinuating that he and Howard are a gay couple and playing those insinuations for laughs might be homophobic, and making Penny less intelligent than the guys might be sexist.
  • Another example is Bird Box. The Producer remarks that having criminally insane people not die from being exposed to the monsters, and instead try to show them to others is insensitive and problematic, and doesn't buy the Screenwriter's excuse that his insane best friend was fine with it.
• Unfortunate Names:
  • In Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, the Producer questions why the protagonist's father, a black police officer, is called Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederate States of America.
  • The race that Dom takes Letty to in Furious 7 is called Race Wars. The Producer asks if they should rethink the name of that race.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: invoked
  • During the The Falcon and the Winter Soldier pitch meeting, the Screenwriter insists that John Walker is a terrible person for killing someone who helped kill his best friend, the Producer however points out not only that given the context of the scene, John Walker killing that person seemed like a reasonable reaction to the murder of his best friend, but also that both Sam and Bucky have killed plenty of people before and were never portrayed as terrible people for doing so like Walker is here after killing just one person.
  • The "antagonists" of Home Sweet Home Alone are a couple who are forced to sell their home just before Christmas as the husband lost his job, and the only way to get the money to save their home is by selling a rare doll that they think the protagonist stole during their open house. The Producer repeatedly returns to the point that they just want to keep their kids out of homelessness and he doesn't want bad things to happen to them.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: invoked
  • In the Die Hard pitch meeting, the Producer asks whether the tragic part of Powell mistakenly shooting a kid in the backstory is that a kid died or Powell "lost his cop mojo". After hearing that it's the latter, the Producer says "Interesting", and upon hearing that Powell's character arc involves him becoming able to kill people again, flatly says, "Well, good for him."
  • In Unbreakable, the Producer feels more sympathy for the woman on the train who rejects David Dunn (who's trying to cheat on his wife) than he does for David himself, despite the fact that the scene is trying to make the latter more sympathetic.
  • In Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019), the Producer is skeptical that Emma's last-minute sacrifice was enough to atone for her actions that nearly got millions of people killed.
  • In the WandaVision pitch meeting, the series ends with Wanda walking out of Westview, with the citizens angry with her for what she put them through, only for Monica to point out that they don't know what she sacrificed for them. The Producer points out that Wanda mentally tortured them, and when the Screenwriter counters that she had to say goodbye to her "imaginary boyfriend," the Producer gives an unconvinced "ehh, okay" in response.
  • During the The Falcon and the Winter Soldier pitch meeting, the Producer repeatedly asks if they're going to stop pretending Karli Morgenthau is sympathetic, such as when she blows up a building full of innocent people or tries to murder Sam. The Screenwriter keeps insisting that she's very sympathetic.
  • The protagonist of Home Sweet Home Alone is a rude and disrespectful kid who hates his family for no real reason, steals toys from his church's charity donation, and during the third act continues to assault the "antagonists" despite them begging him to stop as they genuinely don't mean him harm and just want to talk.
  • In the Jurassic World pitch meeting, the Producer mistakes Claire as the villain of the movie when the Screenwriter tells him that she doesn't evacuate the park immediately after the Indominus rex escapes, "because it would be bad for business". The Screenwriter suggests that the Producer "could cast someone really pretty so people won't notice she's a terrible person".
• Unlimited Wardrobe: In the Spectre pitch meeting, James and Madeleine having new outfits in each scene is said to be due to them shopping while offscreen.
• Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist:
  • The Big Bang Theory has the Screenwriter describes the principal cast as awful people and specifically calls Sheldon "just the worst" while stating that since they'll be "playing the Quirky Card" the audience will accept it.
  • The Screenwriter describes the cast of Seinfeld as a group of high-functioning sociopaths, with Kramer being the least high-functioning of them all.
  • The titular character of Velma is described as a selfish know-it-all who's constantly insulting everyone around her. The producer notes that such a character would be hard for the audience to connect with, to which the Screenwriter answer that as the protagonist they won't have a choice.
• Unobtainium: In the Avatar pitch meeting, the Screenwriter calls the sought-after mineral Unobtanium because the humans are having a hard time obtaining it. The Producer assumes that it's a placeholder name, and the Screenwriter will come up with a less ridiculous name, to which the Screenwriter says, "Yep! For sure! I will!"
• Van Helsing Hate Crimes: In Day Shift, after it turns out that not all vampires are evil, the Producer asks how many innocent vampires Bud killed.
• Verbal Backspace:
  • In the Return of the Jedi pitch meeting, the Producer is concerned about the holes in Luke's plan to free Han, which the Screenwriter tries to Hand Wave with "the Force".
    Producer: We're gonna have to address the fact that Luke's plan is insane.
    Screenwriter: Princess Leia's going to be in a golden bikini along the way.
    Producer: (without missing a beat) Plan's probably fine as-is.
  • In the X-Men: The Last Stand pitch meeting, the Screenwriter suggests that Jean Grey will destroy Wolverine's clothes with her Phoenix powers, only for the Producer to remind him that it's a PG-13 movie. At that point, the Screenwriter hastily says that she'll destroy his shirt and leave his pants intact.
  • invoked Variation: After finishing up the pitch for Sonic the Hedgehog (2020), Producer asks if he's sure they should stick with Sonic's realistic design for the film, to which Screenwriter insists the fans will love it. After cutting to a Screen Rant article detailing how the Internet has mocked the design:
    Screenwriter: (laughs) Whoops!
    Producer: Whoopsy!
    (cut to Screen Rant article announcing the film's delay and Sonic's redesign)
  • In the pitch meeting for Cocaine Bear, the Producer gets more and more insistent on getting away from the human characters to see more of the bear.
    Screenwriter: Well you see, sir, the bear is going to be CGI so every time it's onscreen, that's gonna cost you money.
    Producer: ...So tell me more about these human characters.
  • In the Interstellar pitch meeting, after the Screenwriter calls the Producer "oddly specific," the Producer gets offended, and the Screenwriter tries to backpedal by calling him a "unique snowflake," despite them being Inexplicably Identical Individuals.
  • In Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, the Producer tells the Screenwriter that Kong's robot glove is going too far, but when the Screenwriter says it's a chance to sell robot glove toys, the producer says, "Ctrl-Z," in an attempt to undo that last remark.
• Villain Decay:
  • In the Transformers: Age of Extinction pitch meeting, the Screenwriter pretends that Galvatron(aka Megatron) has a chance of winning against the Autobots despite the heroes having defeated him in the previous three movies.
  • In the Stranger Things pitch meeting, the Screenwriter says that the villains aren't messing around at all in the first episode, after which they become fairly incompetent.
  • In the Rebel Moon pitch meeting, this is alluded to, as the Producer, after learning that the bad guy from Part 1 has been resurrected, asks if the heroes will be able to defeat a guy they killed once before.
• Villain: Exit, Stage Left: In the pitch meeting for Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore:
  Screenwriter: And so then, Grindelwald kind of retreats and jumps off a wall.
  Producer: Where does he go?
  Screenwriter: Into the sequel, if this makes money.
• Villain Team-Up:
  • Discussed in the The Amazing Spider-Man 2 pitch meeting, in which Electro and the Green Goblin team up to fight Spider-Man in the climax, only to take turns doing so, with Green Goblin attacking after Electro is defeated.
  • In the Batman & Robin pitch meeting, Mr. Freeze and Poison Ivy team up despite their goals- freezing the world and covering it with plants, respectively- being at odds with each other.
• Villain Teleportation: In the Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest pitch meeting, Bootstrap Bill somehow teleports back to the Flying Dutchman after giving Jack the black spot, an ability that is never explained or used again.
• Visual Pun:
  • In the Twilight: Eclipse pitch meeting, the Screenwriter mentions that they have to name the movie as such because the book has that name and their hands are tied. Cue both Screenwriter and Producer holding up their hands to show that their hands are literally tied together.
  • At the end of the Rebel Moon pitch meeting, Ryan George mentions wanting to be "transparent" with the viewers. He remains silent for a few seconds, as he slowly turns invisible, then signs off.
• Vocal Dissonance: During the Frozen II pitch meeting, the Screenwriter demonstrates the haunting voice Elsa hears in a high soprano. The Producer Lampshades it by complimenting his beautiful singing voice.
• Vocal Evolution: In the early episodes, Ryan George played the characters with his normal voice. Around mid-2018, he began shifting the characters' voices to have a cheery tone, and in mid-to-late 2019, he deepened the characters' voices and added a boisterous edge.
• Warm Place, Warm Lighting: In the pitch meeting for Breaking Bad, the Screenwriter asserts that they can film scenes taking place in Mexico in the U.S. by adding a yellow tint in post, since "Everything in Mexico is yellow". He even calls up his writer friend in Mexico to demonstrate. Said writer friend is in the same office with the same producer at the moment (both played by Ryan George), and the scene is yellow and both speak Spanish.
• The Watson: In the Inception pitch meeting, after Ariadne joins the team, the others end up explaining things to her.
• Watsonian versus Doylist: The Screenwriter frequently has Doylist reasons for his writing decisions if questioned by the Producer: "Because the movie is almost over and we have to speed things up", "We can sell more toys by including these characters", "I accidentally locked myself out of my laptop, so I can't change the script now", and so on. Sometimes, he'll just go with one after his Watsonian explanation fails.
  Screenwriter: So why didn't they help out when Thanos attacked?
  Producer: Ah, well see, they were instructed to only fight these Deviants and to not interfere with human affairs.
  [...]
  Producer: So if that's how new Celestials are born, it definitely feels like it would've been in their interest to get involved in the Thanos situation of wiping out half of all populations.
  Screenwriter: Maybe, but see the thing is we already didn't introduce the Eternals into the Avengers movies, so I'm gonna need you to get all the way off my back about this.
• Waxing Lyrical: In the Barbenheimer Pitch Meeting, the Barbie screenwriter and producer recite lyrics from Aqua's "Barbie Girl".
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: During the Power Rangers (2017) pitch meeting, the Producer decides that the building the MacGuffin power crystal is in is a Krispy Kreme store, explaining that his father's on the board of directors at Krispy Kreme and he just wants to get his dad to tell him he loves him, just once.
• What Measure Is a Mook?: In the Divergent pitch meeting, after mind-controlling the Big Bad to stop her evil plan, the heroes decide not to kill her despite having killed many extras up to this point.
• What the Hell Is That Accent?:
  • Near the end of Zack Snyder's Justice League, Mera shows up in the nightmare scene and suddenly starts talking in a British accent.
  • When the Producer asks if Ray Winstone can do a Russian accent for his role in Black Widow (2021), the Screenwriter says that it doesn't matter.
• What Year Is It?: In the Star Trek (2009) pitch meeting, the Producer suggests that if Nero had known he traveled far enough back in time to save his homeworld, he might not have become evil.
• Who's on First?:
  • The first 40 seconds or so of the It (2017) pitch meeting involve the Producer getting confused as to what the title of the book that inspired the film is.
  • In the Pitch Meetings pitch meeting, the Screenwriter says he'll include a catchphrase in each video: "Super easy. Barely an inconvenience". The Producer asks what the catchphrase will be.
  • In the Divergent pitch meeting, the Producer is confused as to what Four's name is supposed to be, resulting in an exchange along the line until the Screenwriter explains that it's his name.
• Why Do You Keep Changing Jobs?: While the Screenwriter is presumably a freelancer, the Producer works for a different studio every episode... although his office always looks oddly familiar save for a studio logo on the door.^note Although in the "Spider-Man Leaving the MCU Pitch Meeting" two different producers (one for Sony and one for Marvel Studios) with slightly different clothes appear and talk to each other and the Sony producer takes Screenwriter Guy to his office down the street which is identical to the Marvel producer's studio so we could be seeing different producers every time.
• Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: In the Batman Forever pitch meeting, the Producer notes how stupid it is for the Riddler to not let Two-Face kill Bruce(aka Batman) when Bruce survives being shot in the face.
• Wild Card Excuse: In No Time to Die, the Screenwriter explains that the use of nanobots as the villain's bioweapon is because that way he can write "nanobots" in the script and the weapon can do whatever the plot requires with no further explanation.
• Willing Suspension of Disbelief: Invoked by the Screenwriter to justify some of his more egregious leaps in logic and realism, to the point where he believes the trope itself is less of a description of how viewers might choose to overlook certain unrealistic aspects of a work for the sake of their own enjoyment, and more a get-out-of-jail-free-card that lets him do whatever he wants with a script with no regard for whether it makes any sense. He namedrops the trope in the Home Alone pitch meeting and openly says that he intends to take full advantage of it.
• Wingding Eyes: Hearing about "Baby Yoda" makes dollar signs come out of Producer Guy's eyes. He and Screenwriter Guy are extremely weirded out after it happens, leading to Produer Guy postponing the pitch meeting for three days to go see a doctor, a therapist, and finally a support group for people who have had similar experiences.
• With Great Power Comes Great Hotness: As the screenwriter explains the process by which Morbius becomes a vampire, the character's physical transformation comes up:
  Screenwriter: Then he turns himself into a vampire, so now instead of being all sick and thin, he's jacked and muscular, you know, like a bat!
  Producer: That's not really what bats are known for, but I'm glad you're excited.
  Screenwriter: Dude's freakin' shredded now, he's got like a six-pack, looks like a Calvin Klein underwear model, you know, like a bat.
  Producer: [slightly weirded out] Okay, cool... what kinda bats you been looking at, though?
• Wizard Beard: While revisiting the SHAZAM! pitch meeting, Ryan draws a wizard with a beard, and notes that wizards stop shaving after getting to a certain level.
• Won't Take "Yes" for an Answer: Right from the get go, at the start of the Sharknado pitch meeting, we get the implication that the Screenwriter had tried pitching this movie prior to this meeting, with the title alone being the deal breaker:
  Producer: So, you have a movie for me?
  Screenwriter: Yes sir, I do. It's called Sharknado...
  Producer: (interested) Okay, I'm listening.
  Screenwriter: (apologetic) I completely understand, thanks for your t- (shocked) Wait, you're listening?!
• The Worf Effect: Downplayed with Doctor Strange in Spider-Man: No Way Home, first when Spider-Man defeats him rather easily in the Mirror Dimension which he controls, and later when Ned is able to master using the sling ring almost instantly after learning he's able to use it, while Strange had a very difficult time with it in his origin film.
• World of Jerkass:
  • Christmas with the Kranks is said to have an entirely unlikeable cast, and the Screenwriter doesn't even make the bare minimum effort to remedy this.
  • In Beauty and the Beast (2017), the Producer concludes that "everyone we've met so far is just awful," after hearing about how much Belle hates living in her village and how her fellow residents hate her in return.
• Would Hit a Girl: In Daredevil, the Producer complains about how Matt's willingness to fight a girl doesn't make him look very good, and neither does Elektra's willingness to fight a blind man.
• Would Hurt a Child:
  • The Men in Black being willing to hire the one candidate who thought to shoot the girl with the quantum physics books and ignored any possible reasons she might have for carrying them is described as proof that they operate under this principle.
  • In the Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets pitch meeting, the Producer asks whether Lucius Malfoy plans on using a death curse on Harry, who is eleven, and when the Screenwriter says yes, describes Lucius as "hardcore."
• Writer on Board: The Jurassic World pitch meeting posits that Zara's horrible, drawn-out death that she clearly doesn't deserve was written in purely as a way for the Screenwriter to get back at his ex-girlfriend. Another sign of this being the case? Zara was the only character in the pitch to already have a name.
• Writers Cannot Do Math: The Screenwriter has trouble with numbers. From calculating probabilities to calculating how many eyeballs three people have in total.
  • There's the sand path in A Quiet Place. The Producer says that filling his kid's sandbox takes 100 pounds of sand, so making a path into town would require literally tons of sand.
  • For Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, he estimated that New York City is only populated by about 200 people, only to be informed that the actual population is around 7 million at the time the film was made. Kevin's father is furious with him for spending $967 on room service, despite the fact that he'd paid to fly 14 people across the country twice, implying that the Screenwriter doesn't know how much those plane tickets would cost.
  • In the Sharknado Pitch Meeting, when the producer asks what the odds of Finn jumping out of a helicopter and into a random shark's mouth and that just so happening to be the same shark that ate his friend earlier in the movie are, Screenwriter Guy replies by saying that the odds are "50 percent, either it was or it wasn't."
  • In the Wonder Woman 1984 Pitch Meeting, the Screenwriter insists that a selfless wish, especially one like "World Peace" or "Curing all disease" would be One In A Million Chance, only for the Producer to point out that there are billions of people in the world.
  • In the Godzilla (2014) pitch meeting, the Producer calculates that if Ford wants to get a nuclear bomb 20 miles from the city in five minutes, he will have to go 240 miles per hour, showing that the Screenwriter gravely underestimated how fast he would have to go in order to manage the task.
  • In the Army of the Dead pitch meeting, the Producer notes that $200 million in $100 bills would probably weigh thousands of pounds.^CalculationsSince a $100 bill weighs about a gram, there are 2 million $100 bills, and thus 4,409 pounds worth of money The Screenwriter "solves" this problem by having the protagonists use backpacks.
  • In the Jurassic World Dominion pitch meeting, dinosaurs have overrun the world four years after 50 dinosaurs escape at the end of the previous film.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness:
  • In the Rogue One pitch meeting, the Screenwriter says that he kills off all the characters when they serve their purpose.
    "If someone's no longer useful to me, why would I keep them alive, right?"
  • Discussed during The Hunger Games pitch meeting. Saying how the enemy team recruited Peeta just so he could track Katniss. But even after finding her, the writer still keeps the team from killing him, and even listening to his ideas, despite him having served his purpose.
• You Kill It, You Bought It: The The Santa Clause pitch meeting has the Producer force the Screenwriter to tone down his original plan to have Scott Calvin kill Santa with a gun, and instead have Scott accidentally startle Santa. Even so, the Producer wonders what would happen if a "meth-head" killed Santa and put on his clothes, and the Screenwriter hopes that "the meth-head has a lot of Christmas spirit."
• Your Approval Fills Me with Shame: During the Avengers: Endgame Re-Release
  Screenwriter: We could have a Stan Lee tribute
  Producer: Oh, lure [the audience] in with sadness, I love it.
  Screenwriter: That's not how I saw it. That sounds evil.
  Producer: [hyped] We're gonna make so much extra money off their sadness!!
  Screenwriter: [clearly dejected] Okay...
• Your Mom: In the Star Trek (2009) pitch meeting, the Producer is incredulous that after dozens of attempts to try to anger Spock, the young Vulcan bullies never think to insult his mother until the incident shown early on in the movie.
• You Say Tomato:
  • In the pitch meeting for Venom (2018), the Screenwriter and Producer argue over how "symbiote" is pronounced. The Screenwriter says "sim-bee-ote" and the Producer says "sim-buy-ote." Out of spite, the Producer switches the pronunciations of the words "be" and "buy" for the rest of the meeting.
  • In the Black Panther: Wakanda Forever pitch meeting, the Screenwriter says there is no wrong way to pronounce "Namor." However, when the Producer pronounces it "Nyamour," the Screenwriter says maybe there is one wrong way.

---