Screen Rant Pitch Meetings / Tropes A to L

Screen Rant Pitch Meetings provides examples of the following tropes:

Tropes A-L | Tropes M-Y

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Tropes A-C

• 1-Dimensional Thinking: A variant in the Jurassic Park (1993) pitch meeting, in that the dimension is vertical rather than horizontal. The protagonists try to escape a falling car by climbing down faster than it can fall, rather than getting out of the way.
• Aborted Arc:
  • The Screenwriter is flabbergasted at how many plotlines with Bran and the Night King went nowhere because he was defeated in the third episode of the final season of Game of Thrones, as well as how Jaime's redemption arc got derailed. The Screenwriter blames the overly short final season, even though he repeatedly refused the Producer's offer for extra episodes.
  • In The Amazing Spider-Man, the Screenwriter doesn't feel like wrapping up a plotline before moving onto the next one, resulting in Peter's investigation into his parents' disappearance and his pursuit of Uncle Ben's killer left open-ended.
• Absurd Phobia: The Producer is afraid of clouds, and said phobia is the reason why the antagonists of Green Lantern (2011) and Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer are cloud-based. After all, those antagonists were meant to be threatening and scary, just like a cloud.
• Accentuate the Negative: invoked The show will deliberately focus on flaws or Unfortunate Implications of a film or show's story, often to make the Screenwriter seem all the more insane. For example, the pitch for The Lion King (1994) pays a lot of attention to the fact that based on how lion prides operate, Nala and Simba have to be either half-siblings or cousins. The Screenwriter is depicted as creepily obsessed with the idea of two lions in an incestuous romance, to the Producer's discomfort.
  Screenwriter: [Nala] is going to give him a look that says "You and I are gonna get it on, Brother".
  Producer: Feels like it's going to be difficult convey that expression on a cartoon animal.
  Screenwriter: Actually super easy, barely an inconvenience. Just get me in a room with your weirdest animator and I'll tell him exactly how it should look.
  Producer: Oh, I can't wait for you to be out of my office, you weirdo!
• Accidental Aesop: invoked
  • For Soul.
    Producer: Well, I think it's important for kids to understand that their loved ones that died first of all didn't try hard enough to come back, and also weren't inspiring enough.
  • In Pinocchio (2022, Disney), after Pinocchio grows his nose to reach the key to his cage.
    Screenwriter: So then by lying on purpose, he's able to escape.
    Producer: Oh yeah, that's a pretty good lesson for the kids for sure.
    Screenwriter: It is, yeah, resourcefulness and whatnot.
    Producer: Yeah, and also, you know, sometimes lying can help get you out of tough situations.
    Screenwriter: Oh, that's- that's not really what I was going for.
    Producer: I mean, not many ways to interpret that one, buddy. He literally lies to get out of a situation.
    Screenwriter: Oh, yeah, no, you're right. Maybe that was what I was going for subconsciously.
  • In the The Super Mario Bros. Movie pitch meeting, the fact that Mario's victories come due to power-ups is seen as an endorsement of using performance-enhancing drugs.
• Accidental Nightmare Fuel: Invoked in the Hawkeye (2021) meeting. The Screenwriter pitches two Pym Particle-shrunken Tracksuit Mafia guys being carried away by an owl as a cute and funny resolution, which is the way it's presented in the show. The Producer considers it an absolutely horrific ending, and the Screenwriter tells him not to think about it that much.
• Accomplice by Inaction:
  • Discussed in the pitch meeting for The Big Bang Theory. Leonard is described as the most socially adept of the group, and should be the one who best understands that his friends' behavior is inappropriate, but doesn't do anything to stop it, resulting in the Producer calling Leonard "an enabler."
  • Also discussed in the SHAZAM! pitch meeting, when talking about Billy beating up the bullies who are attacking his foster brother Freddie.
    Producer: I mean, anyone who witnessed something like that would step in. That's horrible.
    Screenwriter: Actually, there's a big crowd of people watching.
    Producer: Oh, there is?
    Screenwriter: Yeah, they don't do anything, and Billy only steps in because the bullies make a joke about moms.
    Producer: Oh, being a passive onlooker is tight.
  • In the Beauty and the Beast (2017) pitch meeting, the Producer can sort of understand why the Prince's servants get cursed for not doing anything about his bad behavior, but he's incredulous that their curse is worse than the Prince's (since they'll die if the Prince fails to break the curse), as well as the dog getting punished.
• Action Prologue: In Quantum of Solace, James Bond escaping from the bad guys and revealing that he has Mr. White in a car is described as a particularly disorienting start to the movie, since Bond's other films are standalone.
• Acting for Two: invoked Ryan George plays both characters. Which doesn't stop the Producer from sometimes criticizing the Screenwriter's appearance.
• Adaptation Expansion: In the Night Swim pitch meeting, the Producer asks if they can make a film based off of a three-minute short, and the Screenwriter says they can pad the run time.
• Adaptation Induced Plothole: Discussed in the It (2017) pitch meeting, in which the Producer sometimes gets confused by various plot points that lack the explanation from the books. In at least one case, though, in which the Producer says that the kids are safe from Pennywise because they're "under the protection of a cosmic turtle god that vomited out the Universe", the Producer decides that it doesn't make sense.
• Advertised Extra:
  • In Thor: Love and Thunder, when the Producer asks if the Guardians of the Galaxy are in it, having been shown teaming up with Thor in Avengers: Endgame, the Screenwriter says yes, but adds, "...but ever so briefly."
  • In Halloween Ends, the plot revolves around Corey, even though Michael Myers and Laurie Strobe are heavily promoted.
  • In the Echo (2024) pitch meeting, it's mentioned that Daredevil will be heavily promoted despite only having a short appearance in the first episode.
• Aesop Amnesia:
  • In the pitch meeting for The Amazing Spider-Man 2, the Screenwriter vows not to fall into the same pitfalls that Spider-Man 3 did, only to make the same mistakes in a different way. People didn't like the relationship problems between Peter and MJ? This film has relationship problems between Peter and Gwen Stacy. People got annoyed with MJ getting kidnapped? Gwen Stacy runs into those dangerous situations herself. People thought that having a Big Bad Ensemble of Sandman, Venom, and Green Goblin Harry resulted in the film having too many villains? This time, the Screenwriter decides to include a different trio of villains; Rhino, Electro, and Green Goblin Harry]], who was in the third movie.
  • In the Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom pitch meeting, Aquaman is once again unhappy with being king of Atlantis despite his character arc in the first film being about accepting his destiny.
• Affectionate Parody: In the revisitation of the Ant-Man pitch meeting, Ryan notes that he likes most of the movies he does pitch meetings for, even if he makes fun of the parts that don't make sense, and that he's noticeably harsher with the films he doesn't like.
• Age-Gap Romance: In the Divergent pitch meeting, the Producer finds the relationship between the 24-year-old Four (whom he briefly thinks is four years old) and the 16-year-old Tris to be "kind of wrong," and isn't happy that the Screenwriter aged up Four from 18 in the books to 24 in the movie.
• Age Lift: In the Divergent pitch meeting, the Producer questions why the Screenwriter made Four older if it would result in an uncomfortable age gap between him and Tris.
• Alien Non-Interference Clause:
  • In Star Trek Into Darkness, it's mentioned that Kirk beaming Spock aboard the Enterprise with aliens around to see it would violate the Prime Directive, but freezing a volcano to stop an eruption would not, a contradiction that the Producer lets pass with barely any comment.
  • In the pitch meeting for Eternals, the Screenwriter tells the Producer that the Eternals didn't take part in the fight against Thanos because they're only allowed to interfere with human history in events related to the Deviants. He then immediately states that the Eternals helped develop technology including nuclear weapons, contradicting his previous statement.
• All for Nothing: The Producer greenlights Fantastic Four (2015) despite its major problems in large part because it will keep the Fantastic Four out of Marvel's hands for a long time. Cue news article confirming that the Fantastic Four will join the MCU.
• All There in the Manual: Darth Maul's survival in Solo is described as perfectly understandable, as long as the viewer has also seen the spinoffs in which he appears.
• All Your Powers Combined: In Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, Johnny somehow uses the "power switching" ability he got from the Silver Surfer to acquire Ben, Reed and Sue's powers without giving them any of his.
• Alternate Catchphrase Inflection: "Screenwriter Guy" has the catchphrase "Super easy, barely an inconvenience", usually said enthusiastically but sometimes he says it in a monotone.
• Ambiguous Syntax:
  • In the pitch meeting for the overall Harry Potter movie franchise:
    Screenwriter: Harry's parents are killed by the evil Lord Voldemort when he was a baby.
    Producer: How was a baby able to kill his parents?
    Screenwriter: No, Harry was the baby.
    Producer: Oh, Harry is Lord Voldemort?
  • In the pitch meeting for Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief:
    Screenwriter: But then a freakin' minotaur throws a cow at them, so they have to fight it.
    Producer: The cow?
    Screenwriter: The minotaur.
    Producer: [disappointed] Oh.
• Amusingly Short List: In the Howard the Duck pitch, the Screenwriter says the movie's going to have a ton of jokes and starts counting on his fingers: "We're talking duck puns... Yeah." After a pause, the Producer asks if there are any other kinds of jokes, and the Screenwriter says absolutely not.
• Angst? What Angst?: Invoked
  • In the pitch video for A New Hope, the Producer asks if Luke and Leia would be affected by the loss of the former's aunt and uncle and the latter's entire homeworld. The Screenwriter says that the former is "fine," while the latter is upset for 10 seconds. In the former case, the Producer also notices that Luke is more upset (if not for long) about the loss of a man he barely met than the aunt and uncle who raised him.
  • In the A Quiet Place pitch meeting, Evelyn concludes the film by giving a smirk and a Dramatic Gun Cock even though her husband just died. The Screenwriter says it's "a cool moment" on which to end the film.
  • In Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, Tina is said to have no reaction to her sister Queenie doing a Face–Heel Turn at the end.
  • In Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, Sue, after being brought Back from the Dead, simply asks, "What'd I miss?"
  • In The Last Airbender, Aang is sad "for several seconds" after hearing about his people being wiped out.
  • In the Independence Day pitch meeting, Captain Hiller is sad about his best friend's death "for an entire shot," then gets back to cracking jokes after punching out the alien.
  • In the The Tomorrow War pitch meeting, Dan shows no remorse for getting ten people killed to save one guy.
  • In Space Jam: A New Legacy, the people who got scanned into the server-verse are briefly terrified about being trapped in the server-verse if LeBron James loses... then cheer for Dom, who's helping the opposing team. Dom likewise feels no remorse for nearly dooming everyone to that fate.
  • In the Day Shift pitch meeting, the protagonist's daughter gets caught up in a chase scene, in which she witnesses several people die and nearly gets killed herself, and considers it awesome.
  • In the Ahsoka pitch meeting, Sabine has barely any emotional reaction upon reuniting with Ezra, who likewise does not call her out on betraying the galaxy to find him.
• Answer Cut: While most end-of-meeting cuts to articles fall into Description Cut, there are a few examples, such as the pitch meeting for the original The Lion King.
  Producer: Well, (The Lion King) sounds great. I can't wait to cash in on it a few times.
  Screenwriter: What do you mean, "a few times?"
  Cut to "The Lion King Gets A Summer 2019 Release Date"
• Anthropic Principle: Often the Producer will question the plausibility of a plot point to which the Screenwriter will reply that it's there so the movie can happen.
• Anti-Climax: Season 4 of Stranger Things reveals that Hopper survived an apparently lethal explosion because "he got out of the way."
• Arbitrary Skepticism:
  • Lampshaded in the pitch meeting for Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, when Ben refuses to believe Johnny's description of the Silver Surfer.
    Producer: The guy made out of rocks doesn't believe that his flying fire friend saw another flying guy?
    Screenwriter: Apparently not.
  • Repeatedly lampshaded in regards to Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings that Shang Chi doesn't believe his immortal father who has magic powers could possibly have been contacted by the ghost of his wife.
• Armor-Piercing Question: In Wednesday, once the Screenwriter reaches Wednesday wanting to stop a murder spree and an apocalyptic prophecy the Producer responds "Isn't this the kind of thing that Wednesday Addams would like to happen?", leading the writer to an Heroic BSoD noting that for all his effort he wound up having a central element opposing the character's core characterization. The Producer calms him down by saying they'll still shoot as is, no matter the inconsistencies.
• Artistic License – Animal Care: In the Batman Returns pitch meeting, the Producer calls out Selina Kyle on serving her cat milk, saying she'll give her cat diarrhea. Ditto Hawkeye (2021) regarding feeding pizza to Lucky.
• Artistic License – Biology:
  • In Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen, Sam's mom eats a pot brownie, and immediately becomes stoned enough to tackle someone, which the Screenwriter is confident is the natural result of eating one.
  • The Die Another Day pitch meeting is full of this. The Screenwriter gives an explanation for the process of creating a new identity that is full of scientific mumbo-jumbo, and Jinx somehow survives being drowned in freezing water because the cold kept her alive.
  • In the RRR (2022) pitch meeting, the Producer points out that it's not possible for Raju to bulk up while being starved in prison, as muscle growth requires protein.
  • In Stranger Things, Steve, Nancy, and Robin are choked by Vecna for up to 45 minutes, but they don't die.
• Artistic License – Economics: In Uncharted (2022), Braddock kills Moncada and almost immediately gains control of his assets. Although the Producer is pretty sure that's not how it works, he's pleased to hear the Screenwriter say that it is (probably something to do with his previous statement that stabbing is tight).
• Artistic License – Geology: In the Eternals pitch meeting, the Producer wonders how a gigantic Celestial partially emerging from the Earth before being turned to stone and left there would affect the planet's integrity, to which the Screenwriter answers that it doesn't.
• Artistic License – History: In the Super Mario Bros. (1993) pitch, the Producer expresses disappointment that Mario doesn't say his famous "It's-a me!" in the movie, even doing a brief impersonation of Charles Martinet's iconic Mario voice. However, the first appearance of "It's-a me" was in Super Mario 64... which was released three years after the movie.
• Artistic License – Law: Superman Returns points out that Superman's failure to appear at Lex Luthor's trial, thus causing him to be acquitted and let out, is "not how the court system works."
• Artistic License – Physics:
  • In the pitch meeting for The Incredibles, the Screenwriter admits that he doesn't understand physics, when the parachuting Elastigirl falls faster than the destroyed plane's engine.
  • In the pitch meeting for Star Trek Into Darkness, the Screenwriter assumes that a cold fusion device can freeze a volcano because it has "cold" in the name.
  • In the pitch meeting for Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, Kevin, who's in Central Park, can somehow hear his father yelling at him from the hotel. Somewhat rectified when the Producer agrees to get the Plaza Hotel, which borders Central Park, for that scene, but it's clear that the Screenwriter doesn't care about whether it would be possible for Kevin to hear his father.
  • Invoked in the pitch for RRR (2022)
    Producer: Alright, Okay, so how are these guys able to do this stuff?
    Screenwriter: Well Sir, do you know physics?
    Producer: Yeah.
    Screenwriter: Well I don't nor do I care to learn!
    Producer: Okay gotcha. It does seem more fun to just ignore all that stuff.
    Screenwriter: It does! And so these two guys will become best friends almost instantly.
    Producer: How?
    Screenwriter: By ignoring physics together.
  • In the The Rings of Power pitch meeting, the volcanic eruption doesn't kill anyone who's caught up in it, and only causes the queen to go blind.
  • The producer seems to have picked up on this trend in the At World's End pitch:
    Screenwriter: Then there's gonna be this big ship battle against Davy Jones.
    Producer: Oooh, are physics gonna be a thing?
    Screenwriter: Not at all.
    Producer: Amazing!
• As You Know:
  • This mode of exposition is mocked in Artemis Fowl.
    Producer: Are we gonna have characters saying "As you know" before telling each other things they already know?
    Screenwriter: You know it!
    Producer: Oh, as you know, that's tight.
  • The Day Shift pitch meeting has the protagonist and his union representative quizzing each other on bits of information on vampires that never becomes relevant later.
  • The pitch meeting for The Flash (2023) has this, with the Screenwriter saying that the idea of a multiverse in a superhero movie "is still fresh, because it's roughly 2014."
• Aside Glance:
  • The Producer gives one of these during The Santa Clause episode, after the Screenwriter mentions a pitch meeting scene, prompting him to proclaim "Pitch meetings are tight".
  • Variation: during Cats, when explaining how the film ends with Old Deuteronomy talking to the audience about how to address a cat, the Screenwriter points directly at the camera while keeping his eyes on the Producer.
  • MatPat does one of these to the viewer after saying that cameoing in Five Nights at Freddy's (2023) will be "super easy, and barely an inconvenience".
• An Ass-Kicking Christmas: Die Hard is initially pitched as a Christmas movie, and described as an extremely violent one. The Screenwriter keeps insisting that it's a Christmas movie by virtue of taking place on Christmas Eve.
• Ass Pull: invoked
  • The Wonder Woman 1984 has the Producer notice that Diana never used her power to make things invisible before she used it on the jet.
  • The Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales has Salazar somehow possess Henry with no foreshadowing or buildup.
  • In the pitch meeting for The Rise of Skywalker, the Screenwriter justifies Palpatine's resurrection by saying, "The Dark Side is a pathway to many abilities some would consider unnatural," which he says translates to "get all the way off my back about that." The Producer has the following to say about Palpatine being the Greater-Scope Villain of the sequel trilogy, only for the Screenwriter to insist that he had a plan.
    Producer: It's so strange that we never hinted at this at all whatsoever in any way.
• Assurance Backfire:
  • Happens in the Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone pitch meeting.
    Screenwriter: So anyway, eventually Harry gets on the train to Hogwarts and he meets this kid Ron Weasley, and he's got a rat on his crotch.
    Producer: Oh, my God!
    Screenwriter: Oh yeah no, it sounds gross, but in a later movie were going to find out that the rat is actually a middle-aged man disguised as a rat.
    Producer: Oh, that's so much worse!
    Screenwriter: Oh yeah, I guess that is worse.
  • Also happens in the Twilight: Breaking Dawn pitch meeting after the Producer finds out Jacob imprints on Bella and Edward's child.
    Screenwriter: Oh, don't worry sir, it's not weird at all, because Jacob's gonna help raise the child before getting romantically involved with it.
    Producer: (sighs) I mean, you know that that's somehow worse, right? You know that.
• A-Team Firing:
  • In Captain America: The Winter Soldier, the Screenwriter says that Nick Fury has little trouble surviving the ambush until the Winter Soldier shows up because the people trying to kill him have horrible aim.
  • In Inception, the projections guarding Fisher are trained to guard him, and have the ability to "sometimes" hit their targets.
• Attack the Mouth: Averted in the pitch meeting for The Batman (2022), in which no one thinks to shoot Batman in the mouth, which is the only part not covered by his costume. Strangely enough, Batman is merely knocked unconscious when a bomb explodes in his face, and his exposed mouth is uninjured.
• Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!:
  • The Producer can rarely remain focused on whatever criticism he has, especially if the Screenwriter brings up the prospect of making money. In a video he also falls asleep when the Screenwriter starts explaining the lore too deeply. The Pacific Rim episode has him constantly ignoring the Screenwriter to just imagine scenes of Jaegers and Kaijus fighting.
  • In the pitch meeting for the second part of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the Screenwriter makes it clear how important it is that Harry's eyes match his mother Lily's, but the Producer is distracted by Angry Birds.
• Audience Surrogate: The Screenwriter justifies his decision to add Cole Young to the Mortal Kombat (2021) film by saying they needed a character for the audience to identify with, and he doesn't think any of the canon characters would do.
• Audience? What Audience?: At the end of the Wonder Woman (2017) pitch meeting, the Screenwriter tells the Producer that he had a strange feeling people would be mad if he didn't say "Super easy, barely an inconvenience!" at least once. The Producer asks, "What people?"
• Awesome Mc Cool Name: The Producer will point out a name that sounds too cool to be real, like saying it sounds like a Mortal Kombat character or asking what the character's real name is. Amusingly, in the pitch meeting for Face/Off, the Producer doesn't believe that Sean Archer and Castor Troy are their real names but is fine with Pollux Troy ("Pollux! Perfectly normal name. I know, like, 14-and-a-half Polluxes!"), and the meeting is interrupted by one of their coworkers, Pollux.
• Awful Wedded Life: The Producer appears to have one, at least from his wife's perspective.
• Badass and Child Duo: In the Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire pitch meeting, the Screenwriter tries to describe Kong and Suko's status as one by using some examples of this- God of War (PS4), The Last of Us, The Mandalorian and Logan- only for the Producer to not recognize any of these, forcing the Screenwriter to say, "Grizzled old fighter bonds with child as they travel!"
• Badass Decay: invoked In Halloween Ends, Michael Myers, who once singlehandedly took on an armed mob, is reduced to an old man who's no match for a guy who gets bullied by the marching band.
• Bad People Abuse Animals invoked in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 when the Screenwriter is explaining how to make the audience despise the High Evolutionary.
  Screenwriter: He's going to be one of the most despicable, most hated villains ever! Just instantly despicable, this guy!
  Producer: Must have been hard to write a villain that's just instantly despicable.
  Screenwriter: Actually, it was super easy! Barely an inconvenience!
  Producer: Oh, really!
  Screenwriter: Yeah, I developed this strategy that develops instant hatred in audiences. Check this out. (Turns his paper around to reveal a drawing of a dog)
  Producer: Aw, a puppy!
  (The Screenwriter punches the drawing several times followed by a long Beat)]]
  Producer: ...I'll kill you.
• Bait-and-Switch:
  • In the Frozen (2013) pitch, when the two are batting around ideas for a title for Elsa's big musical number, the Producer says that they should "let it go for now, and figure it out later."
  Screenwriter: Woah, wait, what was that?
  Producer: What?
  Screenwriter: Repeat that last thing you just said.
  Producer: I said, uh, "let it go."
  Screenwriter: Right, right, right, but the end part?
  Producer: I said "we'll figure it out later."
  Screenwriter: Yeah, we'll figure it out later! 'Cause I can't think of anything good right now.
  Producer: Oh. The way you got excited there, I thought I sparked an idea.
  Screenwriter: Oh, no, I just get really excited about procrastination!
  • For the Barbenheimer pitch meeting, the writer for Barbie is wearing a black shirt, while the writer for Oppenheimer is wearing a pink shirt.
  Producer: Okay, first of all, you guys have chosen some misleading shirts for this pitch meeting.
• Bait-and-Switch Comment:
  • Near the end of the Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides pitch meeting, the Producer says that no one has grown or changed over the course of the movie, and the events haven't had any impact on anything... then says that's fine with him.
  • During the Loki (2021) pitch meeting, the Screenwriter talks about how Loki falls in love with Sylvie (a Loki variant), and the Producer says he can't imagine falling in love with yourself. The Screenwriter responds that he can as he stares at the Producer with a creepy smile, before clarifying that he meant that he can imagine it because he wrote that into the script, and isn't in love with the Producer and that they aren't the same person either. Because the Screenwriter wears glasses and the Producer doesn't.
• Bait-and-Switch Comparison In the Barbenheimer pitch meeting, the Producer tells the Screenwriter pair to "start with the depressing one". By which he means the one which offers a depressing reminder of how dependent modern Hollywood is on using existing intellectual property as a marketing gimmick.
• Beam Me Up, Scotty!: invokedReferenced in the pitch meeting for The Empire Strikes Back. The Screenwriter says Darth Vader tells Luke, "No, I am your father". The Producer insists that "Luke, I am your father" is a great line, and the Screenwriter decides to drop the subject.
• Be Careful What You Say: During the pitch meeting for The Flash (2023), set in 2014, the Producer accidentally jinxes the production by saying he hopes there will be no delays or anything bad happening. After hearing out the pitch, the Producer brightly says that this film should be highly successful, unless something crazy happens, like someone on the main cast going on a crime spree.
  Screenwriter: Why would you say that?
  Producer: It's just a hypothetical. There's no harm in saying hypotheticals.
  Screenwriter: Are you trying to get this movie cursed?
  Producer:: Ohh! Crap, curses. Maybe the universe didn't hear me say that.
• Becoming the Mask: In the Cruella pitch meeting, Estella adopting the Cruella persona to attend the Baroness's party results in her permanently becoming crueler to everyone else.
• Bellisario's Maxim: invoked In the Toy Story pitch meeting, after the Producer asks several difficult questions about toys coming to life, the Screenwriter asks him not to think too hard about it.
• Berserk Button: Cruelty to animals seems to be this for the Producer. In the John Wick pitch meeting, after hearing about John's dog being killed, the Producer goes into a Stunned Silence for several seconds, and then says, "...Ok, some people better die for that." After hearing about Doc Brown using a dog to test his time machine in the Back to the Future pitch meeting, the Producer asks, "Is Doc the bad guy?" He also threatens to kill the Screenwriter for punching a drawing of a puppy in the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 meeting.
• Better by a Different Name: In the Top Gun: Maverick pitch meeting, the Producer keeps calling the film "Star Wars" while the Screenwriter is trying to explain the plot about flying down a narrow canyon to shoot a missile into a thermal exhaust port while insisting that it's not Star Wars. Eventually, Screenwriter accidentally calls it Star Wars.
• Better than a Bare Bulb: The Pitch Meeting for Velma has the Screenwriter state that much of the jokes consists of discussing sitcom tropes and how they'd play out in whatever situation the characters are in.
• Big Anime Eyes: Nearly all the thumbnails for the videos are edited stills or promotional images from the movie that's being pitched to add those, if not also warping the face into some goofy expression. The recurring exception is for Spider-Man movies. Since Spider-Man's mask already has very large eyes, small pupils and a mouth are photoshopped on to achieve the same effect. Another exception is used for Terminator: Dark Fate. Since the Terminator's head looks like a skull, he gets a goofy face for the same effect.
• Big Head Mode: Screenwriter Guy illustrates MODOK's disproportionately large head in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania with his head suddenly becoming stretched out. When Producer Guy incredulously asks how he did that, Screenwriter Guy claims he became capable of it from doing pilates.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: invoked
  • In the Godzilla vs. Kong meeting, the Producer is a little confused at Godzilla emitting an Evil Laugh in the middle of his fight with Kong.
  • He's also baffled by the Screenwriter's description of the infamous boat ride scene from Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, asking why he's stuck such a surreal and frightening scene into the middle of what is ostensibly a kids' movie.
• Bilingual Bonus: In the pitch meeting for Breaking Bad, when the scene cuts to the Screenwriter's writer friend in Mexico, the Screenwriter and Producer in the yellow-tinted office speak several lines of untranslated Spanish, starting with the Screenwriter saying, "Super facíl, apenas una inconveniencia!"
• Black Comedy:
  • The pitch meeting for A Quiet Place, which was uploaded on March 28, 2020, while people were quarantining themselves in their homes during the coronavirus outbreak. The Screenwriter then talks about how the year is 2020, and how city streets are deserted 89 days after the alien attack.
    Producer: Oh, wow, completely empty streets in 2020. Can you imagine?
    Screenwriter: I know. It's crazy, right?
  • In the same video, when the Screenwriter explains how the father shows his son how the sound of a waterfall lets them shout without attracting the monsters, the producer idly wonders what kind of headspace the father had to be to have tried that the first time when in a world where monsters might kill you at the slightest sound. The screenwriter cheerfully confirms it had to be a pretty dark one.
• Blackmail: According to the producer, this is the main reason respected actors agree to appear in so many crappy blockbusters.
• Blatant Lies: The Screenwriter sometimes engages in this.
  • For example, when discussing Wonder Woman (2017):
    Screenwriter: And Ares is going to be like "I will destroy you!"
    Producer: I mean... you're going to come up with a better line than that, right?
    Screenwriter: [shiftily avoiding looking the Producer in the eyes] Uh-huh. Yup. I will.
  • In the Jurassic World episode, he claims that his idea for the movie's title was also Jurassic World, as the Producer suggested. A glance at his script cover reveals he actually planned to call the film Jurassic Circus.
  • In the Batman Forever pitch meeting, the Producer tells the Scriptwriter that he doesn't need the Producer's approval for the costumes unless it's "insane." The Screenwriter says that his costumes are "pretty straightforward stuff," while the camera shows the Screenwriter holding a piece of paper that says "BIG FREAKIN' NIPPLES" in large text and all capitals.
• Bloodless Carnage:
  • When the Screenwriter goes over Braddock killing Moncada in Uncharted (2022), the Producer forces him to change the bloody mess a slit throat would be to a thin red line so as to keep the film PG-13.
  • The Producer again has the Screenwriter tone down a violent scene in Morbius (2022).
    Screenwriter: There's gonna be blood everywhere.
    Producer: PG-13.
    Screenwriter: There's gonna be blood sound effects everywhere.
  • Appropriately enough, it also occurs in the Venom: Let There Be Carnage pitch meeting as the Screenwriter describes Carnage's escape from prison.
    Screenwriter:Yeah, so he just goes crazy, right? He escapes from prison and along the way he kills a bunch of guards. He tears them apart, he rips their spines out and blood spurts—
    Producer: PG-13
    Screenwriter:He throws some guards off-screen onto the wall; that—that probably hurts.
• Blunt "No": Sometimes the author won't even try to justify his reason for certain creative decisions and will just bluntly refuse to change what the producer has a problem with.
• Blunt "Yes":
  • In The Last Jedi pitch video.
    Producer: So we're really taking all the stuff that The Force Awakens set up and just throwing it out the window.
    Screenwriter: Pretty much, yeah.
  • Also from The Last Jedi, there's this exchange regarding Finn and Rose's subplot.
    Screenwriter: So then Finn and this new character, Rose, go on a suuuper long sidequest that doesn't work.
    Producer: It doesn't work at all?
    Screenwriter: Not even a little.
  • In the Fantastic Four (2005) pitch video, after the Screenwriter explains that Sue's invisibility powers require her to undress, but she becomes visible halfway through, enabling the characters and viewers to see her in her underwear. During the bridge scene, Sue has to use her powers to get by the cops and save the people, while Reed and Johnny inexplicably manage to do the same feat without powers that are conducive to stealth.
    Producer: Was this whole thing just an excuse to show a woman in her underwear?
    Screenwriter: Yeah, absolutely.
  • In the Return of the Jedi pitch meeting, the Producer asks the Screenwriter why he didn't have the Emperor lure the Rebels into a trap with fake intelligence, rather than the real way to destroy the second Death Star, and the Screenwriter justifies the decision by saying he needs the heroes to stand a chance.
    Producer: And for them to stand a chance, you had to make the Emperor an idiot?
    Screenwriter: That's right.
  • Shortly after the above, this is also the Screenwriter's response when asked why they bring C-3PO, a "big shiny gold robot," along on the Endor mission, when everyone else wears camouflage.
  • In the pitch meeting for A Quiet Place, the Screenwriter admits that the story is rather inconsistent about how much noise is necessary to attract the aliens' attention. When the Producer asks if it's possible to have more consistency, the Screenwriter gives a flat "No" in response.
  • In the pitch meeting for Aladdin (2019), the Producer asks the Screenwriter if there was anything wrong with the original Aladdin, and the Screenwriter says no. He then says yes when asked whether they should replace Robin Williams as The Genie, and yes when asked about whether they should make the movie again. When the Producer asks if there's any reason people can't just rewatch the original, the Screenwriter says no.
  • In the Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, the Producer observes that there isn't any real reason for the audience to care what happens to the characters, and the Screenwriter says, "That's right."
  • In the pitch meeting for Black Widow (2021):
    Producer: Oh, we're gonna do a more grounded movie about the lady who jumped off a cliff on planet Vormir after a red-faced war criminal who's now a space ghost explained that that was the only way to get her hands on the magic rock she wanted before a muscle-bound purple alien got it and completed his power glove?
    <Beat>
    Screenwriter: Yes.
    Producer: I love it!
  • In the pitch meeting for The Suicide Squad, the Producer asks if the movie is "a sequel, or a reboot, or a soft reboot" to Suicide Squad (2016), to which the Screenwriter answers "Yes". Later in the pitch meeting, the Screenwriter offers another one when the Producer questions Harley Quinn single-handedly taking down armed guards with martial arts.
  • In the Bee Movie pitch meeting, the Producer points out two glaring factual errors about bees within about a minute of the start, then asks if the Screenwriter wrote a movie about bees without doing any research. The Screenwriter says yes, then adds that bee jokes will trump facts in this movie.
  • 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.
• Bond One-Liner: In the prologue of Die Another Day, the Screenwriter has Bond deliver his "saved by the bell" one-liner even though there's no one around to hear it.
• Bonding over Missing Parents: In the meeting for Maleficent, Screenwriter guy gives that as Maleficent and the King's backstory based on the Disney logo above the office door.
  Screenwriter Guy: And they bond over...
  Producer Guy: Dead parents?
  Screenwriter Guy: Dead parents, yup, I saw that logo over the door.
• Borrowed Catch Phrase:
  • In the The Emoji Movie Pitch Meeting, the producer is the one who says that it will be "super easy, barely an inconvenience" to get T.J. Miller to do the voice of Meh.
  • Early in the Five Nights at Freddy's (2023) review, MatPat himself of all people is the one to say it will be "super easy, barely an inconvenience" to get him a cameo in the movie.
• Break Out the Museum Piece: In the Moonfall pitch meeting, the Screenwriter has the protagonists use a space shuttle from an old museum to go into space to save the Earth from the moon. The Producer says they aren't operational, but the Screenwriter says, "But they might be."
• Brick Joke:
  • The pitch meeting for The Two Towers begins with talking about Gandalf's death and subsequent return as Gandalf the White. A few minutes later, the Producer dies and comes back as "Producer Guy the White", with pale pink hair and clothing. He remains like that for the rest of the meeting as well as the Return of the King meeting.
  • An reference to this trope taking place in-story happens in the Transformers pitch meeting. The Screenwriter justifies Sam's unnatural-sounding speech about how "Fifty years from now, when you're looking back at your life, don't you want to be able to say you had the guts to get in the car?" by saying that Mikaela follows up on the speech near the end.
• Broken Aesop:
  • In The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, the moral Thorin delivers in his Final Speech gets undermined by the concept of the film series itself.
    Screenwriter: The moral of this trilogy of movies that we squeezed out of a single book to get a fanbase to come give us their money is, "don't be greedy!"
    Producer: I see no irony in that whatsoever.
  • In the Batman Forever pitch meeting, Robin follows Batman's advice and refuses to kill Two-Face for revenge, which results in Two-Face taking Robin hostage. Later, Batman causes Two-Face to fall to his death by throwing many other coins as Two-Face throws his own coin. The Screenwriter justifies this by saying that murder is not OK, but causing someone to accidentally kill themself is fine, something the Screenwriter approves of.
  • In the The Little Mermaid (2023) pitch meeting, Ariel being the one to kill Ursula, rather than Eric, undermines the lesson King Triton learns about how not all humans are bad.
• Buffy Speak: In the pitch meeting for The Gray Man (2022), three of the characters went to Harvard together. The Producer exclaims, "That's the smart person school!"
• Bullying a Dragon: In the Hancock pitch meeting, the people who try to kill Hancock, a superhero, are described as borderline suicidal for daring to take on such a risk. Granted, he was losing his superpowers during the climax, but they didn't know that.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Say what you will about the Screenwriter's downright laziness and strange sense of creative choices, he HAS written some of the most influential and successful movies in all of cinema.
• By "No", I Mean "Yes": In The LEGO Movie pitch meeting, the Screenwriter denies that he invokedrecycled the premise of The Matrix, before mentioning every single major plot element the two movies have in common.
• Call-Back:
  • The Suicide Squad (2016) pitch meeting mentions Jared Leto's Joker's "damaged" tattoo. Said tattoo is referenced at the start of the Joker (2019) pitch meeting, with the Producer (who initially assumes this is going to be a Suicide Squad follow-up) asking if the Screenwriter's going to add a "Very" to the "Damaged" tattoo.
  • In The Matrix Revolutions, the Producer says that the machines should have used tall towers to put solar panels above the clouds rather than use humans as batteries. The Screenwriter mentions that the original idea was to use humans as a neural network, and when the Producer asks why he scrapped the idea, the Screenwriter reminds the Producer that he asked for the change.
  • The Cats pitch meeting has the Producer perplexed by the meaning of "jellicle", since the Screenwriter keeps using the word without explaining what it means. In the Jungle Cruise pitch meeting, the Producer says that Frank has "a very jellicle motivation".
• The Cameo: The Producer suggests that they should have a film theory about Joker (2019) and explains he has a theory guy. Theory Guy is played by Game Theory's MatPat, who has his own writer in the same pacing and visual style has Pitch Meetings.
  • Simu Liu also appears as himself in a special celebrating the series' 300th episode; he's presented as a "free Canadian actor upgrade" awarded to them by "John YouTube, the inventor of YouTube", for reaching this milestone.
• Canon Character All Along: In Mortal Kombat (2021), the Producer is rather incredulous that Cole Young doesn't become Scorpion after awakening to his latent superpowers, despite being the latter's descendant.
• Canon Discontinuity: Superman Returns is pitched as a sequel to Superman II. When the Screenwriter is asked if it's intended as a sequel to Superman III and Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, he emphatically says, "NO!"
• Captain Oblivious: In Unbreakable the Producer is amazed that David Dunn can't remember that he's never taken a sick day, that he nearly drowned as a child or that he gets visions when he touches people. As the Producer puts it, "This guy's oblivious to most things!"
• Captain Obvious: In the Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom pitch meeting, the Producer does his "He's from the first movie!" Character Catch Phrase on Orm immediately after being reminded he's from the first movie.
• Captain Obvious Reveal: invoked
  • In the Pokémon Detective Pikachu pitch meeting, the Producer quickly guesses the big twist about Detective Pikachu's identity, given the evidence at hand^note For example, the Screenwriter mentions that Tim's dad will often be seen, but his face won't be shown, resulting in the Screenwriter guessing that Ryan Reynolds plays Tim's dad. The Screenwriter unconvincingly tries to deny it.
    Producer: I don't think these twists you're setting up are going to be as twisty as you think they're gonna be.
  • Also in the The New Mutants, the producer immediately figures out what Dani's powers are and how they factor into the plot.
  • In the WandaVision pitch meeting, the Producer almost immediately guesses that Agnes is Agatha Harkness by checking his phone.
  • In the 300 pitch meeting, the Producer is not at all surprised that Ephialtes, the guy Leonidas snubbed, ended up betraying the Spartans, especially since Ephialtes was the only one besides Leonidas who knew about the goat path the Persians use to get around the army.
  • In the The Falcon and the Winter Soldier pitch meeting, the Screenwriter describes the Power Broker, then gives exactly the same description to Sharon Carter. The Producer immediately guesses that they're one and the same, and the Screenwriter tries in vain to deny it, then pretends that The Producer didn't easily guess his big twist.
  • In the Batman Forever pitch meeting, Batman, despite being the world's greatest detective, doesn't figure out that the employee who's obsessed with him and was fond of riddles before going insane is actually The Riddler.
  • In the The Batman (2022) pitch meeting, Batman realizes that "Falcone, the bad guy," is actually "the bad guy."
  • In the The Rings of Power pitch meeting, the Harfoots find a "tall magical man" with a beard and a robe. The Producer immediately guesses that the man is Gandalf.
• Cardboard Prison:
  • In the Daredevil pitch meeting, Daredevil's promising to be waiting for Kingpin when the latter gets out of jail is described as rather hollow, since it will result in an endless cycle of Daredevil sending the Kingpin to jail and the Kingpin getting out.
  • In Ms. Marvel (2022), the Clandestines are arrested by the DODC and brought to a high security prison where they "just kinda break out immediately".
• Casting Gag:
  • When Producer Guy asks what the Vulture is like so he can start casting for Spider-Man: Homecoming, Screenwriter Guy describes him as "a bird... man".
  • The F9 pitch meeting has this be the reason for casting John Cena as Jakob Toretto, who was never invokedseen in the past movies despite being Dom's brother.
  • Inverted in the Jungle Cruise pitch meeting, which reveals that Dwayne Johnson insists on being in every jungle-centric movie, and apparently thinks he was in The Jungle Book (2016) as Baloo. The Red Notice pitch meeting reveals that this extends to putting jungle scenes in his non-jungle-centric movies as well.
• Character Catchphrase: So many of them it has its own page.
• Catchphrase Interruptus:
  • This happens in the SHAZAM! pitch meeting, when referring to how easily Billy's mother abandoned him. Not long afterward, the catch phrase is used without interruptions.
    Producer: I didn't know abandoning a child was so easy.
    Screenwriter: Oh yeah, it's super easy, barely an-
    Producer: Hold on a second. (calls his wife to discuss abandoning their son)
  • In the Mortal Kombat (2021), the Producer is about to say that "getting your soul sucked is tight," but the Screenwriter stops him, saying he understands that he has to say that Catchphrase Once an Episode but it can be gross sometimes, so the Producer should get it out later when the Screenwriter is not around. The Producer says, "Getting it out later when you're gone is tight."
  • During the Hancock pitch meeting, the screenwriter describes the climax of the film:
    Screenwriter: They want to bust out of jail and shoot Hancock as revenge for the hand and butt stuff.
    Producer: Ohhhh, hand and butt stuff is t—
    Screenwriter: Nope.
    Producer: Yeah, good catch.
• Celebrity Cameo: The "Random Celebrity Names Hat", from which the Screenwriter draws names of celebrities. He uses it in:
  • The Mandalorian S3: Jack Black, Lizzo, Christopher Lloyd
  • Fast X: Pete Davidson
• Celebrity Endorsement: In the Space Jam pitch meeting, when discussing how Bugs Bunny uses water as a Magic Feather by calling it "Michael's Secret Stuff":
  Producer: I guess people will buy anything if it has a famous person's name on it.
  Screenwriter: That's the whole idea behind this movie, yeah.
  Producer: True.
• Celebrity Paradox: Pointed out in the pitch meetings for Avengers: Endgame, & WandaVision respectively, where the studio executive questions the Shoutouts the two MCU entries make to Hot Tub Time Machine^note With Sebastian Stan. & The Big Lebowski^note With Jeff Bridges. in the former, and Malcolm in the Middle^note With Bryan Cranston, who appeared in Godzilla (2014) with Elizabeth Olsen & Aaron Taylor-Johnson respectively. in the latter.
• Character Filibuster: Near the end of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Sam lectures some senators and tells them not to call the Flag-Smashers "terrorists,"^note  Despite The Producer pointing out that Karli "used violence and intimidation against civilians in pursuit of political gains" which is the dictionary definition of a terrorist a speech that lasts for four to five minutes.
• Characterization Marches On: In the pitch meeting for The Last Jedi, the Producer is the one who came up with the idea of Leia surviving being blown into space, and using the Force to return to the ship, after the Screenwriter had proposed a beautiful death scene for Leia. While there are situations in which he puts his foot down and convinces the Screenwriter not to do something, the Producer seldom intervenes beyond vetoing a very bad idea, so it's rare to see him overrule a relatively sensible idea from the Screenwriter.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • New Moon having Edward mention the Volturi, a committee of vampires that a vampire asks for permission to die, is described as a particularly blatant and unnatural example.
  • Army of the Dead shows that the Screenwriter doesn't understand how the trope works when a character is blatantly shown with a cool-looking saw but never actually uses the saw.
    Screenwriter: If in the first act, you show a gun on the wall, then in the second act, just kinda have a good time.
    Producer: That's not how that goes.
  • Moonfall has the Screenwriter deliberately avoiding the trope, giving one of the main characters irritable bowel syndrome, mentioning the IBS a lot, and then not paying it off.
    Screenwriter: So then KC sacrifices himself and saves the day.
    Producer: Wow, does he crap his pants?
    Screenwriter: What? No.
    Producer: Sorry, I figured you were gonna pay off the IBS thing somehow.
    Screenwriter: What, like, Chekhov's Bowel?
    Producer: I figured. I don't know.
• Chekhov's Hobby: In the Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny pitch meeting, the Screenwriter uses Teddy's interest in planes as all the necessary narrative justification for how he somehow knows how to fly one.
• Chick Magnet: Inverted to Dude Magnet with Kamala in Ms. Marvel (2022), as all the young male characters (aside from her brother, to the Producer's relief) have "a little crush on her".
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: In the Star Trek Beyond meeting, the Producer asks about Carol Marcus, who joined the Enterprise crew at the end of the previous film, Star Trek Into Darkness. The Screenwriter claims to have never heard of her. When it's mentioned that Jaylah joins the Enterprise at the end of Beyond, the Producer asks whether she too will disappear by the next movie.
• Clark Kenting:
  • In the Cruella pitch meeting, the Baroness doesn't recognize Cruella as her employee Estella, despite the latter making no real effort to hide her identity.
  • In the Superman Returns meeting, the trope namer is discussed. The Producer asks why no one connected Superman's disappearance with Clark Kent's disappearance, but the Screenwriter handwaves it by pointing out that a pair of glasses can fool most people.
• Cliché Storm: invoked The Rebel Moon pitch meeting has the Screenwriter describe the film as being cobbled together from parts of classic movies, in hopes of a surefire success. Every time a scene is derived from another movie, the two discuss what movie it came from.
• Clip Show: "The Catchphrase Pitch Meeting" has the Screenwriter reminisce about the duo's catchphrases by transitioning to montages of numerous previous pitch meetings where they say them. The Producer finds it very annoying that they're doing a clip show, since that's "the laziest kind of comedy episode there is".
• Cloudcuckoolander:
  • The Screenwriter, full stop. As he's the brains behind any flaw the two are discussing. In the show's premise, these are always active, deliberate choices on his part. These can veer into odd directions when they stem from some particular fascinations of his. For example, in The Lion King (1994), Nala and Simba's romance entirely stem out of his obsession with animal incest. In Game of Thrones Season 8 most of his story decisions are motivated by his steadfast refusal to make more episodes. He's also unable to tell actors (and actresses) named Chris apart and thinks politician Chris Christie, Christ Mas (Christmas) and Christian Mingle (A dating website) are actors.
    Screenwriter: Siri, define "logic."
    Producer: That's not a phone, that's your wallet.
    Screenwriter: Haha, it is.
    Producer: Did you really think that was a phone?
    Screenwriter: Sometimes my brain doesn't work so brain.
    Producer: That actually explains a lot.
  • Invoked in the The Big Bang Theory pitch, where the Screenwriter states that the main cast are all incredibly insufferable people but he'll be "playing the Quirky card" with them so that their glaring personality flaws instead become endearing eccentricities.
• Clueless Detective: The Screenwriter describes Wednesday Addams as a great detective, except every single guess she makes turns out wrong.
• Comically Missing the Point:
  • Occurs very frequently during pitch meetings, often as a way for the Screenwriter to accidentally evade a question from the Producer ("There won't be any stakes." "That's fine, because I'm vegan anyway.") or to just get a joke in ("We make another one, but we add 'The' to the title." "Yeah, yeah, yeah. Suicide Squad The!").
  • As the Screenwriter explains it, the inspiration for the first Home Alone film came from an incident where his wife and brother "accidentally" left him behind while they went on a vacation to Paris. The Producer expresses his sympathy, but the Screenwriter is completely oblivious and just remarks on how much fun he had being home alone.
• Compressed Adaptation: The pitch meeting for The Last Airbender has the Screenwriter and Producer agree that taking hours of storytelling in the original series and condensing it into a 90-minute movie is a good idea, even if it results in the characters losing all semblance of personality.
• Conflict Ball: The Producer will often point out when characters are grabbing this for the sake of manufacturing cheap, easily-avoidable conflict.
  • For example, in the Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald Pitch Meeting, conflict is created between Newt and the female lead because of a newspaper misprint announcing that Newt was getting married (it was actually his brother who was getting married). Rather than say one sentence to her to quickly clear the misunderstanding up he lets the conflict run for almost the entire film.
  • In the Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest pitch meeting, the Mêlée à Trois between Will, Jack and Norrington is caused by their conflicting goals for the Heart of Davy Jones- Will wants to free his father, Jack wants to save himself from the Kraken, and Norrington wants to become a "douchey officer" again. The Producer points out that some of those goals might overlap- the implication being that if Davy Jones dies, Will can save his father and Jack won't have to worry about the Kraken.
• Connected All Along: In one episode, the Producer suddenly reveals to the Screenwriter that they're third cousins. Like the film that's getting pitched (Prometheus), the familial connection reveal has no bearing on the rest of the story, and after a moment of uncertainty, the Screenwriter just goes on with the pitch.
• Content Warning: Due to the quick lead time it takes for each Pitch Meeting video that's produced, almost every one that's done for either a new release or series finale less than 5 weeks after its debut will include a spoiler warning at the beginning almost regardless of the work's artistic quality and how they'll poorly age in the long run.^note Some notable exceptions for this have included the respective 2019 remakes of Aladdin and The Lion King, as well as Zack Snyder's Justice League.
• Continuity Lockout: In-Universe. The Producer doesn't think that actors like Alfred Molina making appearances in Spider-Man: No Way Home is all that significant until after the Screenwriter makes him watch the five Spider-Man films Sony produced before working on the MCU Spider-Man films.
• Contrived Coincidence: The Screenwriter frequently relies on these to advance the plot. When the Producer calls them out his usual defense is simply "because the plot needs to happen" which tends to be enough for the Producer to let it go.
  • The pitch meeting for The Force Awakens, involves the Screenwriter describing a string of these that summarizes the entire plot, and saying that they could Hand Wave it as being "the will of the Force."
  • During the pitch for Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, the Producer keeps having trouble with Kevin constantly running into the Wet Bandits and one particular lady Marv has creeped on several times while in New York. Especially when Harry and Marv were arrested in Chicago, so for their escape to happen to take them to New York at exactly the same time makes this even less likely. Apparently, this is because the Screenwriter thought that New York City only had a population of about 200 people, only to be informed that 7 million people live there, but he decides not to change his script to reflect that.
  • In the Batman Begins pitch meeting, Batman happens to be waiting for Jim Gordon on the one night he takes out the trash. The Producer then speculates that Batman must have been watching Gordon very closely to know when he would take out the trash, and that Jim would be the one to do it.
  • In the pitch meeting for Transformers, the car Sam buys just happens to be an Autobot sent to Earth to protect him.
  • In the pitch meeting for Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, one example sets the plot into motion.
    Producer: Wow, pretty wacky coincidence that Jack did the thing that releases Salazar just before meeting Henry, who just met Salazar, who told him to tell Jack that he(Salazar) would kill him(Jack).
    Screenwriter: Extremely wacky, sir; what are the odds?
    Producer: Impossibly slim, I'd imagine.
  • In the Bee Movie pitch meeting, Barry just happens to wind up in the apartment rented by the tennis players he encountered just before the rainstorm.
  • In the Batman (1989) pitch meeting, the Joker happens to become obsessed with Batman's Love Interest, purely by chance.
  • In the Soul pitch meeting, Moonwind's actual body just so happens to be in New York, blocks away from the place where Joe died.
    Producer: He could've been anywhere on the planet but he's a couple of blocks away from them?
    Screenwriter: Y-yeeeah.
    Producer: That works for me.
    Screenwriter: OK, thank God.
  • In the RRR (2022) pitch meeting, the Screenwriter explains that the woman that Bheem spots and falls in love with happens to be a family member of the evil British family who kidnapped Malli. When the Producer asks what the odds of that are, the Screenwriter says he doesn't know or care. Later, Bheem finds out about Raju's true intentions after a random woman who finds and takes Bheem in turns out to be Raju's fiancée. When asked about those odds by the Producer, the Screenwriter tells him to get off his back about odds and statistics.
  • In the The Batman (2022) pitch meeting, Batman is able to figure out the Riddler's plan because one of the cops he's with just happens to have an uncle in the carpet business, and thus can identify one of the Riddler's murder weapons as a tool used to tuck in carpets.
  • In the The Rings of Power pitch meeting, Galadriel just so happens to meet the man who eventually becomes Sauron in the middle of the ocean after jumping off her ship.
  • In the Ghostbusters 2 pitch meeting, Dana not only lived in a haunted apartment in the first movie, but accidentally pushes her baby carriage over some pink slime and happens to work in the museum with the possessed painting in this one. The Producer makes note of how unlucky she is.
• Conversation Cut: A point of discussion the Tenet pitch meeting. The Screenwriter makes multiple location changes during the pitch, and at one point, he abruptly stops talking, calls an Uber back to the office, and tells the Producer to wait seven minutes before they can resume their conversation.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: Sillier and nicer than most, but some of what we know about Producer paints him as a borderline supervillain including, but not limited to his intention to buy Canada, willingness to sell off his grandmother, and apparently he worships Satan, complete with the Voice of the Legion. Also his favorite hobby is throwing coins at poor people to see how they react.
  Screenwriter: Taking lives while music plays is going to be a really big part of this film.
  Producer: Death is great. Hail Satan.
  Screenwriter: What?
• Costume Porn: In the Cruella pitch meeting, Cruella's plan to upstage the Baroness through her outfits earns the Producer's approval, since it justifies this trope.
• "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: The Producer will frequently bring up how the entire plot of the movie could have been avoided if not for the characters making one, or several, totally illogical decisions in order to drive the events of the film forward.
• Covered in Gunge: The Producer and the Screenwriter agree that much of the humor in Men in Black should involve characters covered in alien bodily fluids.
• Crazy-Prepared:
  • In the Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer pitch meeting, the Producer insists that Galactus is scary like a cloud and shows a slideshow of scary clouds to demonstrate. The Screenwriter wonders why he has this presentation ready.
  • In the Ms. Marvel (2022) pitch meeting, the Screenwriter explains that loads of people have "expository presentations" ready to use at any time in the MCU.
  • In the Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire pitch meeting, the Producer finds it hard to believe that the protagonists had a replacement tooth and a scrapped project for an armored exoskeleton laying around for Kong.
• Creator Cameo: During the Five Nights at Freddy's (2023) review, the Screenwriter phones MatPat of Game Theory to ask him to cameo in the movie, with him noting that it will be "super easy, and barely an inconvenience". MatPat then gives an Aside Glance and lampshades how fanservice-y him saying the Screenwriter's Character Catchphrase is.
• Creator Provincialism: In the The Tomorrow War pitch meeting, the draft to fight a war in the future only seems to happen in America, which the Producer says is fair since America is making the movie.
• Creator's Apathy: invoked During the Super Mario Bros. (1993) pitch, every time the Producer asks why a plot point goes some way or a character does something, the Screenwriter answers, "I don't care" with increasing annoyance and moves on. Eventually, the Producer just puts his hands up defensively and doesn't ask again.
• Curse Cut Short:
  • The Screenwriter does this when confronted about a Contrived Coincidence in Christmas with the Kranks
    Producer: Wow, what are the odds of that?
    Screenwriter: Oh, odds don't matter when invokedI'm pulling all of this out of my... (interrupted by the Producer, who changes the subject)
  • When discussing what role Patrick Stewart should play in The Emoji Movie, the producer says "I don’t know, maybe the piece of sh-" only to be cut off by the end of the episode.^note  There was another use of "shit" earlier in the episode, but it was self-censored out of fear of demonetization and the mouthing of the word was covered by a respective shit emoji.

Tropes D-L

• Damned By a Fool's Praise: The series often indirectly mocks various ideas by having the Producer praise them for stupid reasons.
• Damned by Faint Praise:
  • The series will often have the Producer react to returning characters that the creator isn't fond of (or at least thinks weren't used well when they were brought back) by saying, "I remember him! He was in the first/previous movie!", implying that he can't think of any more meaningful compliments.
  • In the Old pitch meeting, the Producer notes that the Screenwriter's dialogue, such as having Trent ask the other beachgoers their names and occupations, as well as having a doctor say that a dead dog was only just alive, almost sounds like what real humans might say. The Producer gives the same description to Anakin and Padme's romantic lines to each other in Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith.
• Dark and Troubled Past: The Screenwriter, hence some of his more disturbing ideas.
  Producer: What kind of awful stuff happened to you as a kid?
  Screenwriter: You couldn't possibly imagine.
• Darker and Edgier:
  • The Man of Steel pitch video discusses the film's status as a "dark, gritty origin story" for Superman, and how it isn't the best idea for an Ideal Hero like Superman.
  • X-Men: The Last Stand repeatedly kills off characters, often with little focus on the repercussions of their deaths, so the Screenwriter can do "big boy" stuff with the story.
  • The Batman Begins pitch describes the film as a dark and gritty version of Batman's origin story, which is even referenced in the video's title. The Producer, however, finds it strange that they'd go this route for a superhero who dresses up as a bat and trained to be a Ninja in the film.
  • The The Batman (2022) pitch meeting not only describes the film as having a darker tone than previous movies, but also having darker lighting. The Screenwriter proposes eventually making a film in total darkness and reading a Batman audiobook, and the Producer is enthusiastic about the money he'll save on that idea.
• Dead Star Walking: In the Godzilla (2014) pitch meeting, the Producer is disappointed to learn that the character played by Bryan Cranston is killed off in favor of his much less interesting and charismatic son, who has less of a personal stake in finding out the truth.
• Death Is Cheap:
  • The Screenwriter decides to say that "death is just another portal" in the Mortal Kombat (2021) pitch meeting, so that they can make sequels despite killing off the villains in this movie.
  • In the The Rise of Skywalker pitch meeting, the Screenwriter undoes the deaths of characters so he can have "impactful" moments without the actual impact.
  • When they discuss Kingpin's Uncertain Doom in Hawkeye (2021), it's pointed out that the movies have brought up many of the death-reversing methods the comics had, and questioning if mortality and stakes can still be relied on.
• Deliberately Bad Example: In the Cruella pitch meeting, the Baroness's purpose is to make Cruella seem sympathetic by comparison.
• Department of Redundancy Department: In Wish (2023), King Magnifico remarks "I let you live here for free, and I don't charge you rent," with the Producer saying they mean the same thing.
• Description Cut: Almost Every Episode Ending (with a few exceptions, many of which instead qualify as an Answer Cut) ends with a cut to a Screen Rant story headline that either contradicts or exacerbates the final lines.
• Designated Hero: invoked
  • In the 300 pitch meeting, the Producer has a hard time accepting the Spartans as the heroes after how horribly they treat their children.
  • In the Avengers: Age of Ultron pitch meeting, the Screenwriter says that the film begins with the Avengers murdering people and cracking jokes.
  • In the Batman (1989) pitch meeting, the Producer isn't impressed with how Batman refuses to stop a mugging and after scaring the muggers for "free publicity," doesn't even return the stolen items. He's horrified when a "stone cold sober" Bruce sleeps with a drunk Vicki Vale. He finds it even worse when Batman only tells Vicki about how to stop the Joker's poison, all while people are dying.
    Producer: Okay, I'm just gonna say it. I think this guy's kind of a monster.
    Screenwriter: (looking at the script) Uh, it says right here he's a hero.
  • In the Thor: Love and Thunder pitch meeting, Thor's status as this is discussed.
    Screenwriter: Yeah, and so then, our hero— you know, the guy with an army of child soldiers— attacks the bad guy— who's, you know, the guy who thinks gods should be nicer to people.
    Producer: That's... I don't- don't phrase it that way.
    Screenwriter: Right, okay, the good guy fights the bad guy.
    Producer: Definitely keep it vague, that sounds better.
  • In the Superman Returns, Superman abandons Lois and their son, causing Lex Luthor to be acquitted, and stalks them at night with his X-Ray vision
  • In Wonder Woman 1984, the Producer is first a bit unnerved by the implications of Steve Trevor stealing a stranger's body, but then becomes far more so when Diana and Steve become physically intimate using his body. He even notes that the problem could easily be solved by having Steve just appear as himself, instead of possessing somebody, only to be flatly told no by the Screenwriter.
  • In Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, the Producer becomes increasingly fed up with Grandpa Joe's selfish behavior and asks several times whether he's the bad guy.
  • In Jurassic World, the Producer quickly decides that Claire is "the bad guy," based on her refusal to evacuate the park after the Indominus Rex's escape on the basis that doing so would be bad for business. He agrees to cast someone beautiful as her to hide that she's a terrible person. When revisiting the pitch meeting, Ryan references a video by Mike Hill that says Claire is the villain of the movie, which Ryan says is "on the mark."
• Designated Villain: invoked
  • In Toy Story, the Producer describes Sid's treatment of his toys, from blowing them up to grafting parts onto other toys, as "creative." He doesn't fully get why Sid's the villain, since Sid doesn't know the toys are alive.
  • In The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, John Walker is described as being unfairly condemned for his actions, especially killing someone who'd killed his friend, despite the fact that both Bucky and Sam have killed people before.
• Despair Event Horizon: In the Old pitch meeting, upon being told that a pair of six year old children are going to rapidly grow to adulthood and have sex, and the girl is going to get pregnant and gives birth in about an hour only for the baby to spontaneously die, the Producer gives a Thousand-Yard Stare and mutters about how his grades were good enough that he could have become a doctor. He stays in this funk until the Screenwriter tells him that the movie is based on a graphic novel rather than being an original idea.
• Determinator: The screenwriter uses a description showcasing how persistent Captain Marvel was, referencing Chumbawamba's "Tubthumping", with the producer asking about the various drinks listed.
• Didn't Think This Through:
  • The Producer realizes that it's a terrible idea for the Abbot family in A Quiet Place to have a "screaming baby" while they're being stalked by aliens that hunt based on sound.
  • The Incredibles has this as the Producer's reaction to Syndrome immediately getting knocked out by the Omnidroid in the middle of his Engineered Heroics.
  • In Army of the Dead, Scott's daughter tries to go save her friend at the last minute, despite the fact that a nuke will be launched in an hour and they probably won't be able to make it back to the helicopter.
  • In the Mulan (2020) pitch, Screenwriter Guy explains that Mulan has to take her father's place since he is old and might die in the war. The next sentence he says that the commander is very strict and sends back anyone who doesn't meet his expectations. Producer Guy immediately points out that this means her father would have been sent back and therefore would have never been in danger. Screenwriter Guy is stunned into silence by the revelation.
• Disability as an Excuse for Jerkassery: Implied in The Big Bang Theory, where the writer states that by playing "The Quirky Card" with the cast, their glaring personality flaws will be implied to be vague disorders that make them funny sitcom characters rather than the insufferable people they'd likely be in real life.
• Dissimile: When asked about the characters in Velma, Screenwriter Guy states that "they're the same old gang that the fanbase knows and loves, [...] except, you know, completely different in almost every way."
• Disposable Woman: In the John Wick pitch meeting, the title character's wife "dies of being the wife of a main character in an action movie", to which the Producer remarks "that can be deadly."
• Disproportionate Retribution: In the Daredevil pitch meeting, the Producer is shocked by Bullseye killing the old woman next to him on his flight for talking too much, and describes Bullseye as "pure evil."
  • In the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 pitch, the Producer threatens to kill the Screenwriter guy, promises him he'll never work in this or any town again, and then declares that he's going to set his mailbox on fire and nuke his house, all for the "crime" of punching a drawing of a puppy to illustrate how he's going to get everyone to hate the High Evolutionary.
• Distinction Without a Difference:
  • In the pitch meeting for Zack Snyder's Justice League, the Screenwriter introduces members of the Justice League: Cyborg has a big car accident scene, and the Flash has a big car accident scene. The Producer asks if they're "just kind of sprinkling in some car accident scenes for everybody", and the Screenwriter assures him, no, because that'd be repetitive. Aquaman gets a boat accident scene. The Producer is convinced, exclaiming, "Oh, that's a completely different mode of transportation!"
  • During the John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum pitch meeting, the Screenwriter says there's going to be a big final showdown in a house of mirrors, and the Producer remarks that they already did that in the previous movie. The Screenwriter changes the location to a "house of glass panels that reflect stuff".
• Distracted by the Sexy:
  • In the Return of the Jedi episode, the Producer is refusing to let go of how stupid & contrived Luke's plan to rescue Han is until the Screenwriter mentions Leia's gold bikini and he immediately forgets all his objections.
  • Inverted: when the Producer expresses concerns over the necessity of Watchmen having Doctor Manhattan's junk uncensored just because the comic did so as well, the Screenwriter questions his concerns by asking if he would be distracted if he held up a picture of said junk while they talked... which he does. Not only is the Producer extremely put off by the picture, but he completely tunes out of the Screenwriter's explanation of Doctor Manhattan's powers due to being unable to stop staring at the picture.
• Dream Within a Dream: In the pitch for The Wolverine:
  Producer: Ahh, a dream within a dream, ya got me!
  Screenwriter: Yeah, you thought he was done dreaming, but he's not!
  Producer: My concept of reality has been shattered and I don't know how to feel any more!
• Don't Explain the Joke: In the pitch meeting for Suicide Squad (2016), this is mocked when the Producer says that all of the Joker's tattoos, from the laughing mouth on his hand to "JOKER" on his chest make sense "because he's the Joker".
• Downer Beginning:
  • At the start of the X-Men pitch meeting, the Producer talks about how fun superhero movies are, only to hear that the film starts in a concentration camp.
  • In the Pokémon Detective Pikachu movie, the Producer's surprised that the film begins with a "very depressing" first twenty minutes, which leads into Mood Whiplash after the "super bubbly and over-the-top" Lucy is introduced.
  • Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) begins with Peter Quill's mother dying and him being abducted shortly afterward. The Producer, having been told the movie would be funny, thinks this is supposed to be a joke until the Screenwriter says otherwise.
  • SHAZAM!, despite being Lighter and Softer than the rest of the DCEU begins with Billy being abandoned by his mother.
  • Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny follows the prologue with Indy old and grumpy after losing his son and being separated from his wife. The Screenwriter says that it's a rule that a beloved character must be miserable after being brought back much older.
• Dude, Where's My Respect?: In Transformers: Dark of the Moon, the government doesn't know who Sam is and Sam has trouble getting a job despite having saved the world twice.
• Dull Surprise: The default reaction the Screenwriter has to the Producer revealing his criminal activities, sexual proclivities or supernatural abilities is a quick and stoic "Ohmygod" before swiftly moving on.
• Early-Installment Weirdness:
  • The episode featuring The Last Jedi is far slower paced, and has the Producer asking what the Screenwriter's plans are for specific characters rather than just having the latter say his pitch. Unlike later pitch meetings, the Screenwriter talks about various elements of the movie out of order rather than providing a rough summary of the movie's plot. It doesn't open with the usual "So you have a (x) for me?". Ryan also uses the same voices for both characters.
  • "Justice League Pitch Meeting", the very first video using the Screenwriter and the Producer on Ryan George's channel before the series went to Screenrant, is only 24 seconds long.
  • In early episodes, the Producer in particular tends to be more serious and more skeptical-looking, without the Sure, Let's Go with That tendencies that he acquires later on.
  • Discussed in Justice League Pitch Meeting - Revisited (1 Million Subscriber Special). Ryan notes that he cringes at some of his earlier content, but notes that during this time, he was figuring things out. He brings up how Parks and Recreation had a similar process of finding itself in the first season.
  • In The Emoji Movie pitch meeting, the Producer, not the Screenwriter, says "super easy, barely an inconvenience," since it was still early in the series, and Ryan hadn't established it as a Screenwriter catchphrase.
  • The Jurassic World pitch meeting was the sixth pitch meeting, when Ryan wasn't sure whether it would become a regular thing. In it, the Producer is a bit more assertive than other installments, such as demanding that the Screenwriter give his characters names.
  • Earlier on in the series, a few pitch meetings covered entire series. As time went by, this practice largely fell by the wayside in favor of pitch meetings for individual movies.
• Easily Forgiven:
  • In the pitch for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, the producer wonders if Mantis can still be likable after being complicit in Ego killing all of his children, to which the screenwriter responds that no one will care due to her being naïve and cute.
  • The pitch meeting for Back to the Future has the Producer express disbelief that Marty's father would hire Biff, the man who tried to sexually assault his wife, to wax his car.
  • Eternals has Sersi use her remaining power to grant Sprite's wish to grow up by turning her human, even though Sprite had run her through with a dagger minutes earlier.
• Easily Impressed: The Producer. The Screenwriter uses that often to plaster over any objection or criticism he has.
• Ending Fatigue: invoked
  • In the pitch meeting for The Lost World: Jurassic Park, the Producer is under the impression that the main characters leaving the island is the end of the movie, only for the Screenwriter to interrupt him and bring up the part in San Diego. He says that he'd thought the movie was over, and that he found the entire San Diego sequence "unnecessary".
    Producer: Is it done now? Do you have any other short films you want to tack on to the end of this thing?
  • And then there's the Return of the King example which even he didn't think would ever end.
• Electricity Knocks You Out: While pitching Wonder Woman 1984, the Screenwriter says that during the fight between Barbara—"who, by the way, is a cat now"—and Diana, Barbara will get electrocuted and go to sleep. When the Producer assumes Barbara dies, the Screenwriter says no, when cats get electrocuted, they just get "a little sleepy". He recalls when his childhood cat chewed through an electrical cord, his dad said that the cat went to sleep and then went to live on a farm and he never saw him again.
• Esoteric Happy Ending: invoked
  • Star Trek Into Darkness ends on a relatively happy note, with Kirk revived and Khan defeated, completely ignoring how tens of thousands of people probably died when Khan crashed the Vengeance into San Francisco.
  • In the pitch meeting for The Hunger Games sequel, the Producer is incredulous that after the symbol of the revolution murders the leader of said revolution, everything turns out fine in a few years.
  • Moonfall ends with a happy ending despite the moon-related disasters having killed off much of humanity.
  • Five Nights at Freddy's (2023) has the Producer point out that with Mike's aunt's dead body at the house and Mike having brought a cop with a stab wound to the hospital, Mike will likely be facing criminal charges.
• Establishing Character Moment: At the start of the 300 pitch meeting, the Screenwriter describes the Spartans inspecting babies for any signs of weaknesses and killing those that don't meet their standards. The Producer says this is a great way to introduce the villains, and is horrified when the Screenwriter says that the Spartans are the heroes.
• Establishing Shot: Almost every episode of the series has opened with the same glass door that leads into the producer's office, with the only difference being that of the logo on the doorway changing to reflect the studio and/or distributor of the films/shows that they're being pitched to.
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep":
  • The Producer guy introduces himself as "Studio Executive Guy" in the end slate for the X-Men: The Last Stand pitch video, and the Screenwriter guy takes it a step further by revealing that "Screenwriter Guy" is his actual legal name.
  • Screenwriter guy called the Producer "Producer Guy The White" after he dies and returns to life in The Two Towers. Producer Guy agrees that it is what people used to call him.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • The Producer is usually very willing to accommodate the Screenwriter, even the more insane and nonsensical ideas. In the It (2017) Pitch Meeting, however, when the Screenwriter talks about putting the child orgy scene from the book, the Producer looks absolutely livid, and Screenwriter wisely chooses to leave it out of the movie.
    • In the same video, when discussing the novel's revelation that the reason the Loser's Club can escape Pennywise so easily is because they're being protected by "a cosmic turtle-god that vomited out the Universe", both the Producer and the Screenwriter immediately agree that they'd be better off just avoiding the subject in the movie entirely.
  • While the Screenwriter's the source of all those terrible ideas, even he questions whether it's a good idea to reboot Spider-Man again in the video about Spider-Man leaving the MCU.
  • The Screenwriter, despite being responsible for many of the questionable creative decisions in The Rise of Skywalker, is hesitant to include a kiss between Rey and Kylo Ren, since he doesn't think they had any romantic chemistry, but backs down when the Producer badgers him into including a kiss.
  • The Producer will almost always willing to go along with the Screenwriter's Willing Suspension of Disbelief, no matter how insane they may be. But during the pitch for The Happening the Screenwriter describes a scene in which the main characters manage to "outrun the wind," and the Producer's only reaction is a flat "You're an idiot."
  • During the pitch meeting for The Nightmare Before Christmas, the Screenwriter is against making a sequel to the movie, since it would be a mere cash grab that would cheapen the original.
  • Zig-zagged in the Twilight Breaking Dawn pitch. The Producer is very put off by Jacob "imprinting" on Bella's newborn baby, and the implications of what it entails. The Screenwriter does manage to distract him with thoughts of money, but he is later shown clearly struggling and actively forcing himself to focus on that when the imprinting comes up again, grimacing and muttering "money, money, money, money," to himself.
  • In the Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides pitch meeting, the Screenwriter, who's usually enamored with his terrible ideas, admits he isn't all that invested in the romantic subplot between the missionary and the mermaid, but says they need a young couple.
  • In the Old pitch meeting, the Producer is rendered speechless by the Screenwriter's most disturbing proposal- having an aged-up six-year-old boy and girl have sex, resulting in the latter quickly getting pregnant, giving birth and soon losing her baby- and how it will end up in the final movie. The Producer sighs, shakes his head and regrets the life choices he made that led him here... until he hears that the movie was based on an existing intellectual property, which causes him to cheer up.
  • In the Transformers: Age of Extinction, the Producer is disturbed by the idea of a 20-year-old man sleeping with a 17-year-old girl, and when the Screenwriter brings up the legal justification, he says he could just make the girl 18, and questions why the screenwriter has such detailed knowledge of this specific law.
  • In the Squid Game pitch meeting, the Screenwriter, who has a tendency to cut corners when making shows and movies, is offended by the Producer's embracing the trend of casting Caucasian actors to play Asian characters in films and TV shows.
  • In the pitch meeting for the second part of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the Screenwriter disapproves of not only dividing the movie into two halves, but dividing the second half into two, the fourth fourth into another two movies, ad infinitum. He politely says that at this point, they're "kinda tapped out here," much to the Producer's disappointment.
  • In the pitch meeting for Space Jam, The Producer is disturbed by The Screenwriter's obsession with sexualizing a cartoon rabbit. He does begrudgingly agree to let The Screenwriter go through with it, but adds, "only if you promise never to come near my kids". The Producer also really didn't want to see the Screenwriter's ideas for how human-bee mating would work in the Bee Movie pitch meeting, and insists that he burn the drawings as soon as possible.
  • In the pitch meeting for Back to the Future, the Screenwriter rejects the Producer's idea to re-title the movie "Spaceman from Pluto".
  • Even though he did green-light it, The Producer couldn't pretend to have particularly high expectations for The Star Wars Holiday Special. He bluntly tells the Screenwriter that, after it's released, they will likely spend decades trying to pretend like it never existed.
  • The Screenwriter is usually fine with cash-grab sequels ruining emotional beats from the original, but in the pitch meeting for Avengers: Endgame, he insists that Marvel not cheapen the impact of Tony Stark's sacrifice by bringing him back in a later movie.
  • The Screenwriter usually uses any excuse to justify cutting corners, but in the The Flash (2023), he momentarily seems uncomfortable with the Producer deciding that they can say "the CGI looks bad on purpose" with regards to other cameos of famous superhero actors.
  • In the Jurassic World pitch meeting, the Producer, who will usually do just about anything for money, is noticeably appalled by Claire's hesitance to close the park after the Indominus Rex has escaped and people have already died, just because it's bad for business.
  • In the Moonfall pitch meeting, the Producer, who usually puts profit ahead of what makes sense for the movie, finds it odd that NASA would scrap an EMP project they need to save the world because of budgetary concerns.
  • In the Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire pitch meeting, the Producer puts his foot down and says that while these monster movies are silly fun, he has trouble believing the part about the robot glove for Kong... until the Screenwriter convinces him that it's a merchandising opportunity.
• Everything Except Most Things: During the Jungle Cruise pitch meeting, the Screenwriter is very insistent that the movie has nothing to do with the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, then proceeds to list over half a dozen similarities to said movies, to the point the Producer calls him out on it multiple times.
• Evil Versus Evil: In the pitch video about Spider-Man leaving the MCU, both the Producer and his counterpart from Sony are both portrayed as greedy, even if the former comes off as marginally more stubborn. Downplayed in that while they aren't monstrously evil, they're both almost equally unsympathetic.
• Exact Words: In the Pitch Meeting for The Nightmare Before Christmas, the Producer promises the Screenwriter that they will not make a sequel movie. He didn’t say anything about not making a sequel comic…
• Excuse Plot: The Mission: Impossible plot is generally used to justify the insane stunts needed to accomplish the missions.
• Executive Meddling:
  • invoked Generally surprisingly averted by the Producer. While he's often prone to find ways to milk money out of a work (for example through Sequelitis), he rarely causes much change to whatever the Screenwriter's pitch is. His attempts to point out flaws in the premise tend to be ignored or simply justified over by the Screenwriter (often with thin logic) and as the Producer is both an Extreme Doormat and has a very poor attention span, he'll rapidly just move on. There are however a few moments here and there where he adamantly insists something nonsensical be included in the movie that even the Screenwriter seems hesitant about.
  • Outright defied in the pitch for John Wick where the Producer Guy tries to order common studio mandates (adding a love interest, going into too much exposition) only to be shot down by the Screenwriter Guy. He outright says that he's having a hard time ruining the movie because of this.
• Extreme Doormat:
  • The Producer will back down from any objection the moment the Screenwriter shows the slightest bit of opposition. The only exceptions are when these involve specific (and often esoteric) pet peeves of his.
  • Generally the Screenwriter almost always gets the Producer to back down by telling him to get off his back, which always makes the Producer relent.
• Failed a Spot Check: In Cruella, the Baroness doesn't notice hundreds of people behind her as Cruella tricks her into "killing" Cruella in front of witnesses. It's "justified" by none of those witnesses saying a word or making a sound, which is just as improbable.
• Failure-to-Save Murder: In Batman Forever, Two-Face becomes obsessed with killing Batman due to Batman not saving him from an acid attack despite how improbable it would be for Batman to be in the courtroom at the time.
• Fake Shemp: In the SHAZAM! episode, the Screenwriter promises to end the film by showing Superman "in all his glory," but after learning that Henry Cavill will not be available, he amends it to showing Superman "from the shoulders down."
• Fascinating Eyebrow: In the Jungle Cruise pitch, the Producer says Dwayne Johnson "has eyes and ears everywhere" and seems afraid of him, specifically bringing up his famous raised eyebrow.
  Producer: Nobody knows why, but he's very aggressive about it. He's gotta be in jungle movies. [...]
  Screenwriter: Oh- okay, it's not like he can sue you or anything, though.
  Producer: No, but he'll raise an eyebrow at me, and I don't like how that makes me feel.
• Faux Action Girl: In Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), Gamora, "the deadliest woman in the galaxy," loses most of her fights and has to be saved multiple times.
• Fight Scene Failure: In the Echo (2024) pitch meeting, the Screenwriter mentions that Daredevil and Echo will have a fight scene, and "sometimes it's going to look like they're hitting each other."
• Fisher King: In the The Lion King (1994) pitch meeting:
  Screenwriter: Then Simba becomes king again, and it immediately starts to rain, and all the plants and stuff grow back.
  Producer: I never realized that a lion monarchy could have such an impact on the weather and environment.
  Screenwriter: Yeah, it's a little known fact.
• Flashback Effects: In "The Catchphrase Pitch Meeting" (the 200th episode), the Producer expresses irritation when the screen fades, transitioning to a Clip Show of past episodes featuring their Character Catchphrases.
  Producer: Oh, why are you looking off into the distance like that?
  Screenwriter: In fact, I say it kind of a lot.
  Producer: Kind of feels like you're trying to transition into a montage clip show, and I did not sign up for that- Oh, oh, oh, it's happening.
  [...]
  Screenwriter: And then of course there's that thing you always say...
  Producer: Look, I know I say that things are "tight" a lot, okay? We don't have to cut away to me saying- it's happening again.
• Flat Character:
  • A recurring gag is that the Screenwriter will introduce the merest bare bones of a character's role in the movie, such as "And then we meet the hero's girlfriend, Alice", prompting the Producer to ask "And what's her deal?" and be met with "I just told you."
  • In the Avatar episode, the Screenwriter says that since a film is only as good as its villain, he made sure to give Colonel Quaritch "a really compelling backstory and multi-layered character development." He then says he was kidding, and that Quaritch is "just a really mean military guy," so as to keep the runtime down.
  • The entire cast of Kong: Skull Island is defined by their occupations and skillsets, and the Screenwriter doesn't even know what a character arc is.
  • When the Producer is told that Eternals will have ten central characters, he states that a film wouldn't have enough time to develop them all and the concept seems more suited for a TV series. The Screenwriter thinks it'll be fine.
  • In the Moonfall pitch meeting, the Screenwriter thinks that having IBS is enough to make one character rounded.
• Flat "What": When Screenwriter is talking about Joe in Soul and how great his life is, only to then say he dies, Producer stares for a few seconds before offering a "what."
• Follow the Leader:invoked The Producer is into Percy Jackson and the Olympians because he thinks it sounds like Harry Potter. The Screenwriter has to correct him when he refers to Percy Jackson as "Harry Potter" and Camp Half-Blood as "Hogwarts."
  Screenwriter: This isn't Harry Potter, sir.
  Producer: For financial reasons, I'd sure like it to be.
• Foreign Remake: The Producer's first instinct upon hearing a pitch from The Otherwoods is to make an American ripoff.
  Screenwriter: It's over on the Tollywood side of things, so I was thinking we could, you know —
  Producer: Just grab the concept and remake it shot-for-shot but with American actors?
• Foregone Conclusion:
  • In the Cruella pitch meeting, the Producer questions why people would want to see a movie about a woman who will eventually become a puppy-skinning villainess.
  • In the Black Widow (2021) pitch meeting, the Screenwriter has Natasha survive several attacks that she logically shouldn't, stating that she can't die because her death has already been shown in Avengers: Endgame, which takes place later in the timeline.
  • In the Eternals pitch meeting, the Producer hears that the Eternals purpose is to keep humanity growing until a Celestial developing within the Earth could consume them and break out. He then asks why the Eternals wouldn't break their Alien Non-Interference Clause to fight Thanos as his mass genocide directly hindered this happening. The Screenwriter tells him that they couldn't have done it because they hadn't been introduced into the MCU at that time.
• Foreshadowing: In Old, the family discussing their interest in seeing the kids when they're older and how important it is to appreciate the moment is shown as a particularly clunky example of foreshadowing the beach's Rapid Aging properties.
• Forgot About His Powers:
  • In the SHAZAM! pitch meeting, the Screenwriter says that the Seven Deadly Sins will forget to use their ability to turn into mist during the climax, as well as be surprisingly gentle toward their child opponents.
  • The The Last Airbender pitch meeting has the Producer notice how stupid it was to imprison Earthbenders in a place with a lot of earth, which they can manipulate with their earthbending. The Screenwriter admits that in canon, they were imprisoned on a metal ship out at sea, and that he changes things without understanding why he does so.
  • In the Fantastic Four (2015), it's mentioned that Doom doesn't use his instant-kill moves on the eponymous heroes, despite having used them on all his other foes.
  • In the Iron Man 3 pitch meeting, Killian forgets about his ability to breathe fire during the final battle.
  • In the Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (2022) pitch meeting, Sonic forgets about the fact that he's so fast he can make Time Stand Still in favor of having a Dance-Off to get the map back.
  • In the Thor: Love and Thunder pitch meeting, Thor forgets about commanding Stormbreaker to return to his hands after Gorr steals it.
  • In Obi-Wan Kenobi, the reason Obi-Wan is able to escape his first fight with Vader is because Tala starts a fire, despite the fact that Darth Vader used the Force to extinguish a fire moments ago.
• Formula-Breaking Episode: In the 200th episode, rather than doing another pitch for a movie or TV Show, the Screenwriter and Producer try to get to know each other personally as well as recap their Catch Phrases.
• Franchise Original Sin: invoked Discussed in the follow-up to the Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) pitch meeting. Ryan says that one criticism of Marvel is characters making quips in emotional moments, and that Guardians is no exception. Ryan notes that James Gunn is good at including heart in silly movies and TV series, but that the success of Guardians caused the creators of other MCU movies to try to follow its example, but with less success.
• Freudian Excuse: It’s implied a lot of the Screenwriter’s issues stem from his weird, messed up childhood. For example, the origin for Bruce and Rachel reminiscing about condensed milk in Batman Begins.
  Screenwriter: You remember when you were a kid and you'd say “Mother, could I please have some sweet, sweet condensed milk?”
  Producer: Uh....
  Screenwriter: And then she’d say [in a suddenly disturbed tone of voice and with a Kubrick Stare] “Not until you’ve brushed Mother’s hair. Not until you've brushed it well.”
  Producer: Oh, I think you might have had a weird childhood.
  Screenwriter:[back to his normal cheery tone] Oh, did I? Dang it, that explains some stuff!
• Freudian Slip:
  • In the Pokémon Detective Pikachu pitch meeting, the Screenwriter says that as Tim and Pikachu search for Tim's father, they will visit "Pokémon products." He tries to correct himself, but the Producer liked it better the first time.
  • In the Daredevil pitch meeting, as the Screenwriter discusses Matt's father being murdered in an alley, he calls Matt "Bruce".
  • The Kong: Skull Island pitch meeting has a few references to the Marvel Cinematic Universe early on, so at the end, the Screenwriter says the Sequel Hook will involve the Avengers Initiative, when he means the Monarch Initiative.
  • In the Jurassic World pitch, the Screenwriter denies that he based Claire's assistant Zara (the woman who gets tossed around like a chew toy by some pterodactyls before being Eaten Alive by the park's mosasaur) on his ex. Later on, when he's explaining how the Indominus Rex is killed, he cheerfully states that "the bad dinosaur gets eaten by the same shark thing as my ex-girlfriend."
  • The Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom pitch meeting has the Screenwriter say, "Wakanda" rather than "Atlantis" when talking about Aquaman's kingdom sharing its technology.
• Friendship Moment: After the Producer points out a major plot hole in the narrative of Toy Story^note Namely, if Buzz thinks he's a Space Ranger, and not a toy, then he should be moving around even if Andy is in the room., the Screenwriter deflates, realizing this breaks the plot. The Producer, worried, then tries to explain that the audience most likely won't notice, but when the Screenwriter begins repeatedly hitting himself^note "Stupid, stupid, STUPID!", the Producer suggests moving on past that.
• Fridge Logic: invoked
  • Discussed in the A Quiet Place pitch meeting, when the Producer keeps asking about things the family should have done differently to protect themselves from the aliens. The Screenwriter lampshades this trope.
  "Listen, the more you think about this concept, the more survival solutions you're gonna find, and I'm gonna need you to get off my back about all of them."
  • Much of the The Boss Baby pitch meeting rips apart the things that don't make sense about the movie, such as babies running a corporation or puppies replacing babies somehow.
• Fun with Homophones: At the start of the Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban pitch meeting, the Screenwriter describes Sirius Black as a dangerous criminal who apparently wants to kill Harry and ratted his parents out to Voldemort. The Producer responds, "Sounds like it's pretty serious", to which the Screenwriter remarks that he's decent looking, sure.
• Gambit Roulette: In The Dark Knight, the Producer notices that the Joker's plans rely on people doing exactly as he expects them to, no matter how improbable.
• Gender-Blender Name: Originally, Rey from the new Star Wars trilogy was going to be called "Raymond". According to the Screenwriter, he consulted the rest of the office, and according to him, "Everybody Loves Raymond".
• Generic Doomsday Villain: The pitch meeting for Zack Snyder's Justice League decides to remedy this trope applying to Steppenwolf in the original by having him in service to Darkseid... who qualifies for this trope himself.
• Gesundheit: In the meeting for Thor: Ragnarok, the producer says "bless you" in response to hearing the word "Ragnarok", and later the writer says the same thing upon hearing the name Taika Waititi.
• Gift-Giving Gaffe: In Toy Story, it's suggested that the toys shouldn't be that scared of being replaced, since Andy's friends give him gifts like bed sheets and a lunchbox, with Buzz Lightyear being the only good gift. The Screenwriter even admits that Andy's friends are horrible at giving gifts.
• The Glasses Gotta Go: In the Wonder Woman 1984 pitch meeting, the Screenwriter describes Barbara as a pathetic nerd that nobody likes. When she wishes to be more like Diana, she gets new clothes and super strength, and she removes her glasses, which makes people automatically more attractive.
• Godzilla Threshold: In the Captain Marvel pitch meeting, the Producer wonders why Fury only decided to contact Carol at the end of Avengers: Infinity War, and didn't consider the crises in the previous two films to be enough of an emergency to ask for her help^note Though official Word of God from Kevin Feige implies that he did, but the Avengers took care of the situations before she got there.
• Good All Along:
  • In the pitch meeting for The Hunger Games sequels, the Producer is rather skeptical about Plutarch being a "good guy" all along, especially considering he was responsible for ordering public executions.
  • In the pitch meeting for Moonfall, the Producer is surprised that the moon turned out to be on the humans' side despite having been used to cause all the disasters in the movie.
• Got Me Doing It: While the Screenwriter is explaining the mission in Top Gun: Maverick, the Producer says thrice that it sounds like they have to do "a Star Wars", and the Screenwriter insists that it has no similarities with Star Wars. He then goes on with, "Mav has a couple of weeks to train these pilots to do a Star Wars—" and catches himself too late.
  • In the Cats, pitch meeting, the Screenwriter repeatedly describes things as "jellicle"; by the end of the meeting, the Producer is doing it too, much to his confusion.
    Producer: Wait, did I just say jellicle? Why'd I say jellicle?
    Screenwriter: The jellicle hypnosis has taken effect.
• Grammar Nazi: In Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, the Screenwriter accuses the Producer of being one when the latter says he should call the heroes "Spider-men" rather than "Spidermans."
• Greed: Both the Producer and Screenwriter are motivated primarily by money. Pitches for movies and shows based on existing IP and/or have merchandising opportunities get them excited, and explicit Product Placement and invokedPandering to the Base are included to make them more money. During pitches that make the Producer deeply uncomfortable, such as Breaking Dawn and Old, the Screenwriter just has to remind him about the money that they'll get from doing these movies.
• Half the Man He Used to Be: In the Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness pitch meeting, when Wanda kills Captain Carter, the latter is said to be "50% off."
• Halfway Plot Switch: The pitch meeting for Hancock mocks the film's use of this trope, basically treating the parts of the movie before and after Mary's introduction as two different films.
• Hand Wave: Frequently utilized by the Screenwriter.
  • For example, in the pitch meeting for Star Trek Into Darkness, he says that "space reasons" preclude more practical solutions for preventing the eruption.
  • In the Old pitch meeting, he claims that the Rapid Aging caused by the beach doesn't affect dead cells, despite the fact that he also has a dead body decompose more quickly, so they don't have to get wigs for the actors.
• Hard Truth Aesop: In the Wreck-It Ralph pitch meeting, the moral of Ralph learning to be happy in his role as a villain despite hating it is that people should accept their lot in life, no matter how bad it is.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Invoked in the The Hunger Games Sequels video (released January 31st 2021, but presumably set circa 2012).
  Screenwriter: So they want to storm the capital!
  Producer: Storming the capital is tight!
  Screenwriter: Yay yay yay!
  (Beat)
  Producer: That's gonna age well right?
  Screenwriter: What is?
  Producer: That sentence I just said? That's going to age okay?
  Screenwriter: Why wouldn't it age well?
  Producer: I don't know I just got this weird feel- It's probably okay.
• Heel–Face Turn: In X-Men: Apocalypse, the Screenwriter points out that Apocalypse's Four Horsemen's main role is to betray him^note Except for Archangel, who dies in the fight with the X-men. Likewise, Magneto is Easily Forgiven for killing countless people because he helped the good guys at the end.
• Heh Heh, You Said "X": The Fantastic Four (2015) has this after the Producer claims that superhero movie audiences like exposition more than action, adding that he's sure of that, "Unless I read the results backwards. (chuckle) I do do that sometimes." The Screenwriter points out the Producer's unfortunate word choice, at which point the Producer reminds the Screenwriter that this is why he's the one writing the screenplays.
• Held Gaze: Screenwriter uses this in The New Mutants between Mirage and Wolfsbane so he can indicate that they're in love without having to write anything. Screenwriter and Producer then spend several seconds staring at each other without saying anything.
• Heroic BSoD:
  • The Producer suffers two during the Twilight: Breaking Dawn pitch meeting, first at the revelation that Jacob imprints on Bella's baby in the romantic sense, and later when the sole exciting part of the whole four movie trilogy, a climactic battle, turns out to be a vision and nothing at all actually happens. Both times he falls silent and works his jaw for several seconds before expressing his dissatisfaction. The Screenwriter successfully refocuses him on all the money they'll make.
  • He blue-screens pretty hard when the Screenwriter describes a particularly unsettling plot point in Old, namely that the Rapid Aging field surrounding the beach in the movie will cause two six-year-olds to instantly grow into young adults, after which they have sex and produce a baby which is born within 20 minutes and dies almost immediately.
    Producer: [heavy sigh] ... I could have been a doctor.
    Screenwriter: What?
    Producer: I could have been a doctor. I had good grades, I was a good student.
  • The Screenwriter also has one when he notices Wednesday kind of botched the core of Wednesday Addams' character.
• Heroic Sacrifice: In Captain America: The First Avenger, the Producer briefly thinks that Steve jumping on the fake grenade at boot camp is proof that he's suicidal, rather than self-sacrificing.
• His Name Really Is "Barkeep": The Screenwriter’s name is Screenwriter Guy, though he once claimed to be M. Night Shyamalan.
• History Repeats: The Black Widow (2021) makes sure to note one In Name Only Marvel interpretation that somehow applied to two characters.
  Screenwriter: This villain called Taskmaster. I thought we could do a Deadpool kind of thing.
  Producer: Yeah, bringing a character people love to the big screen in an enjoyable way, sure!
  Screenwriter: No, I meant a Deadpool in X-Men Origins: Wolverine kind of thing.
  Producer: Oh, turning the character into a mind-controlled killing machine with no speaking lines or personality traits. Yeah, that works too!
• Hoist by His Own Petard: In the Transformers pitch meeting, the Producer is surprised when Sam kills Megatron by shoving the Allspark into Megatron's chest.
  Producer: The thing he was trying to get his hands on immediately kills him when he touches it?
• Humor Dissonance:invoked Most of the jokes from whatever's being pitched are either made out to be much funnier than they are by the Screenwriter, or don't exactly land as intended.
  • The Producer is deeply underwhelmed by the opening scenes of Christmas with the Kranks, and can't believe it's nothing but Tim Allen being drenched with water over and over. After hearing that Luther deliberately freezes a cat with a hose and makes his own walkway slippery, then having one-scene jokes described to him like "the Kranks get seen in bathing suits by their priest" and "Luther gets botox", he asks the Screenwriter if he's "just kinda doin' stuff".
    Screenwriter: Okay, okay, so Luther needs to go into this store to buy something for Nora, right? But it's pouring rain, and he forgot his umbrella!
    Producer: Okay, yeah.
    Screenwriter: And so HE... just gets WET!
    Producer: Uh-huh, uh-huh.
    Screenwriter: Like, really... like, super... just, just, just ALL wet, just COMPLETELY wet.
    Producer: [gesturing for him to continue] Yeah, yeah, sure.
    Screenwriter: And, and, and... you know, he's not happy about it, being wet; he w-wishes he wasn't, for sure.
    Producer: Sure, sure, yeah, no, of course.
    Screenwriter: So, you know... I got to be honest, sir, I thought you'd be laughing by now.
    Producer: Oh! Oh, that was the funny thing.
    Screenwriter: Yeah-yeah-yeah, he gets all WET!
    Producer: Well, comedy's hard.
    [...]
    Screenwriter: So we're gonna get a good five minutes out of that gag.
    Producer: Five minutes?! Wow, okay, really... really going in on that 'it's currently raining' bit.
  • As mentioned above, one of the many gags the Screenwriter mentions for the trick arrow scene in Hawkeye is the truck of goons being shrunk down to toy size and carried off by an owl. The Producer is more disturbed than anything, imagining the owl tearing the tiny men apart with its beak, and calls it one of the most horrifying ideas in the MCU. "I'm gonna have nightmares!"
• Hypno Fool: In the Cats meeting, the Producer clearly does not want to bankroll the movie, but is hypnotized into doing so (along with rolling his shoulders "seductively") by repetition of the word "Jellicle".
• Hypocrite:
  • In the Transformers: Age of Extinction pitch meeting, Harold Addiger doesn't want the Transformers to fight his battles for him... so he teams up with a Transformer to hunt them down.
  • In the Jurassic World pitch meeting, Owen is described as an animal lover who treats raptors like animals... and feeds them other animals. Additionally, Claire, who'd refused to listen to Owen when he wanted her to save all the guests, asks for his help in saving two guests- her nephews.
• Hypocritical Humor:
  • The Screenwriter and the Producer makes fun of Gollum for talking to himself in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.
    Screenwriter: This guy is frickin' nuts. I mean, at a certain point in the movie, he's just having a full-on conversation with himself.
    Producer: He's just talking to himself and replying as if he was two different people?
    Screenwriter: Yeah, he's frickin' nuts!
    Producer: Oho, this guy's got problems!
    [Both of them laugh awkwardly]
  • When Daniel Craig is cast for Casino Royale (2006), both the Screenwriter and the Producer (both, of course, played by Ryan George) call him weird for having Two First Names.
  • During the Moon Knight (2022) pitch meeting, the Producer insists that multiple characters played by the same actor is terrible, especially if they spend a lot of time talking to each other.
  • During the Jurassic Park (1993) pitch meeting, the Producer reacts to John Hammond showing his guests a video of himself introducing the park and interacting with it by saying, "What kind of an idiot makes a video talking to himself and tries to pass that off as entertainment?"
• Idiot Ball:
  • In the Artemis Fowl pitch meetings, Artemis Fowl takes off the sunglasses protecting him from the elves' mind control while asking if he can trust them.
  • In the pitch meeting for The Incredibles, Mirage, despite having initially contacted Mr. Incredible through "a super secret tablet thing," calls the Parr family residence the second time. The Screenwriter tries to Hand Wave it by claiming that Mirage "got lazy," only to be told that it sounds more likely that he did.
  • In the Wednesday pitch meeting, the Screenwriter mentions that Wednesday suspects Xavier of being the monster even after getting DNA evidence that he's not.
• Idiot Plot: Invoked a few times.
  • Much of the pitch for Home Alone 2: Lost in New York is dedicated to pointing out how everyone involves needs to be an idiot for the movie to ever happen^note That a family of 14 has 1 alarm clock between them which no one checks before going to bed so they rush to the airport again. That Kevin's dad casually gives Kevin his bag containing his wallet when Kevin asks for batteries rather than tell him it can wait till they are not running because they are late. That the airport staff have no questions about Kevin asking to board a plane, and don't make sure he sits with the person he identified as his dad. That the hotel concierge is suspicious enough of Kevin to sneak into Kevin's room to see if his dad is there, but not suspicious enough that he'd just deny Kevin's attempt to rent the room in the first place. As the producer says for the later "Best case scenario in that guy's mind, he's breaking into a lone child's room and finding that child all alone?".
    Producer: So we're taking another break from Logic so this can happen?
    Screenwriter: We're going to be taking LOTS of those.
    Producer: I guess we have to.
  • The pitch for Home Alone 3 is so stupid that the Producer's ears start smoking from "a bunch of his brain cells giving up at once".
  • The pitch for Alien: Covenant has the Screenwriter blatantly say the movie doesn't work if anyone ever does something smart. At one point the Producer asks if every member of the cast has brain damage.
  • The pitch for Home Sweet Home Alone has the "antagonists" use strange wording when the protagonist is eavesdropping on them to make him misunderstand their objective, then somehow they think an AI smart home voice is a grandmother staying at home, then when they see the protagonist talking with an old woman at church assume she's the grandmother and yet don't try to explain things to her as they think she only speaks German, and during the trap sequence one of them somehow doesn't realize that he's wearing a VR headset and believes he's actually been transported to the top of a cliff, and when they're able to talk to the protagonist they don't mention that they just want the doll (which is their property anyway and he never actually took) until after all the traps are through.
• Ignorance Is Bliss: In the Wonder Woman 1984 pitch meeting, the Screenwriter says that Barbara gets electrocuted and goes to sleep, which is what happens to cats when they're electrocuted. When the Producer tries to inform the Screenwriter that that's not what happens, the Screenwriter recalls when he was a child, his dad told him that their cat went to sleep after chewing an electrical cord, and then he went to live on a farm and was never seen again. The Producer decides not to press further.
• Ignored Epiphany: On many occasions, one or both of the duo will directly realize that whatever they're saying makes no sense, and then simply go "...huh", before launching into the next segment of the plot, making no effort to change the story they've just realized has a massive, easily-plugged plot hole.
• I'll Never Tell You What I'm Telling You!: In The Rings of Power, Elrond responding to his boss's questions about the dwarves mining mithril by saying he swore an oath of secrecy only serves to confirm the former's suspicions.
• Immediate Self-Contradiction: The Screenwriter is prone to weakening his statements with contradictions, sometimes within the same sentence.
  • In the pitch meeting for The Amazing Spider-Man 2, the Screenwriter tells about how Norman Osborn never imagined that he would end up dying the way he did... of a rare disease that only affects the Osborn family and which Norman started suffering from when he was his son's age.
  • In the pitch meeting for Wonder Woman 1984, the Screenwriter says that Diana is still heartbroken over Steve Trevor's death. "You gotta understand. This was a really good guy she knew for a couple of days seven decades ago."
  • In the pitch meeting for Eternals, the Screenwriter explains how the Eternals help develop and inspire human technology immediately after saying that they're not allowed to interfere in human events unless Deviants are involved.
  • After the Screenwriter explains that the Doc in Back to the Future uses animal testing to see if his time machine works, the Producer asks if Doc is the bad guy. The Screenwriter replies, "Whoa, what would make you think he's the bad guy? So anyway, then the terrorists he's been dealing with show up."
• Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy:
  • The stormtroopers' inability to hit anything in the Trope Namer is mocked, especially after Obi-Wan's remark that the laser shots fired at the sandcrawler were too precise to come from the Tusken Raiders.
  • In the F9 pitch meeting, the Producer says that the good guys will have "45,000 bullets fired at them throughout the movie, and not a single one is gonna touch them" and says this is okay because he'll have one of the protagonists make self-aware quips about how they might be invincible.
  • In the Rebel Moon pitch meeting, the bad guys who surround the protagonists but are unable to kill them are described as "alternative stormtroopers."
• Inexplicably Identical Individuals: According to one episode, everyone on the planet except for film actors look the same, hence why there are countless identical Screenwriter guys and Producer guys. The Casino Royale (2006) episode introduces the British version of the pair, played by a different actor so presumably everyone in England looks like this guy. MatPat apparently exists in this world as two people as well.
  • The pitch meeting for The Meg offers an alternative explanation by revealing the Producer used plastic surgery to look exactly like the Screenwriter for no other reason than because he could afford to. The Screenwriter never questioned it because he assumed he was going insane.
  • In the pitch meeting for Spider-Man leaving the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the Producer from Sony looks exactly the same as the other Producer, apart from a different-colored shirt.
  • The pitch meeting for Back to the Future has Larry, a subordinate of the Producer's who looks and dresses like the Producer, save for not wearing a jacket.
• Inflationary Dialogue: In the Madame Web (2024) pitch meeting, the Screenwriter says Cassie will teach the girls CPR for no other reason than it's going to be "Chekhov's CPR Class" later. The Producer calls it "threeshadowing" because it's not quite good enough to be "foreshadowing". When the CPR scene occurs near the end of the movie, the Producer remarks on the "twoshadowing" from earlier.
• Info Dump: In the pitch meeting for Day Shift, the Screenwriter says Bud and a union rep are going to do an "exposition battle" where they quiz each other on things both already know because he "has a bunch of worldbuilding [he wants] to dump on the audience". He then dumps that info on the Producer in the next half-minute, who is seen taking notes.
• Informed Ability: In the SHAZAM! (2019) pitch meeting, Billy, despite getting the wisdom of Solomon, is goofier in his hero form than as a teenager. The Producer asks if "the wisdom thing was pretty much nothing," and the Screenwriter says yes.
• Informed Attribute: In Captain Marvel, Yon-Rogg repeatedly criticizes Carol for being too emotional despite her barely showing any emotion.
• In Name Only: In Velma, the main cast's names and outfits are the only things they have in common with the source material.
• Insane Troll Logic: In the Wonder Woman 1984, when the Producer says that Steve, who was a pilot in World War I, shouldn't know how to pilot a modern airplane, the Screenwriter says that, "A plane is a plane."
• In Spite of a Nail: The Back to the Future pitch meeting points out how it doesn't make sense for some aspects of the new version of 1985 to stay the same as before in spite of everything Marty changed by time traveling. Examples include the family staying in the same house as before despite Marty's father being successful, Marty's brother staying with his folks despite having a good job in this timeline, and Marty himself having the memories and experiences of his old life in the new timeline.
• Instant Expert:
  • This trope is lampshaded in the pitch meeting for 'SHAZAM!', when Billy's foster siblings learning how to use their powers during the climax, despite just having received them, is described as "super easy, barely an inconvenience." By comparison, Billy spent most of the movie learning how to master his powers.
  • In the Ahsoka pitch meeting, Sabine almost flawlessly uses the Force in the climax, despite having struggled with it for the entire series.
• Interrupted by the End:
  • Near the end of the Jurassic Park III pitch, the Producer is a little surprised that the movie ends abruptly and says, "Oh, abrupt endings are ti-" before the video abruptly cuts to Ryan George's end-of-video spiel.
  • The Hancock pitch has an Overly Long Gag where the Producer has a very difficult time imagining Will Smith reacting to someone saying words with violence, and as he goes on explaining how Smith couldn't possibly behave in such a way, he gets interrupted by the Description Cut at the end of the video.
• Irrelevant Sidequest: The concept is referenced whenever the Screenwriter calls sequences that are mostly irrelevant to the plot "sidequests," like Canto Bight in The Last Jedi.
• Isn't It Ironic?: After Screenwriter mentions a desire to have "Zombie" by The Cranberries play towards the end of Army of the Dead, Producer responds negatively by asking "Wasn't that song written in response to a tragedy where some children were killed?"
  Screenwriter: Well, that's a good point, but counterpoint: It has the word "zombie" in it.
  Producer: Well, yeah, no, that is a good point, too.
• It Will Never Catch On: The Pitch Meetings pitch meeting ends on the producer predicting it will be good for 3-4 episodes, as it'll turn old pretty fast. It then cuts to a screen thanking the viewer for watching episode 100.
• Jackass Genie: The genie from Aladdin is interpreted as a Blue-and-Orange Morality take on this, with him not actually making Aladdin a prince despite this being his first wish. Yet he's also able to create thousands of living, loyal servants and riches out of thin air but somehow not giving him a country.
• Jerkass Ball: In The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, Thorin's "dragon sickness" is the reason why he turns into a "greedy jerk" who makes "frustrating, nonsensical decisions for 90% of the movie."
• Jerks Are Worse Than Villains: invoked In the Breaking Bad pitch meeting, the Screenwriter predicts viewers will "hate (Skyler) more than the violent criminals on the show" just because she nags Walt and wants to find out the truth behind his lies.
• Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: Anakin's sudden shift in Revenge of the Sith from being conflicted over defending Palpatine from Mace Windu to immediately agreeing to slaughter children is lampshaded and explained as "he's decided to be evil now."
• Kangaroo Court: In Toy Story, the other toys quickly turning on Woody for supposedly causing Buzz's death without even giving Woody time to explain himself is described as this.
• Karma Houdini:
  • In the X-Men: The Last Stand pitch meeting, it's mentioned that Magneto somehow doesn't end up in prison despite being a wanted terrorist.
  • In The Nightmare Before Christmas, Jack is said to face no consequences for his attempt at stealing Christmas.
  • In The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, Alfrid never learns anything or gets any comeuppance for his greedy ways.
  • In Space Jam: A New Legacy, Warner Brothers suffers no consequences for making an algorithm that nearly traps thousands of people inside a virtual world.
  • In Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore, Queenie faces no consequences for joining Grindelwald, and even gets to marry the man she loves.
  • In Jurassic World Dominion, Henry Wu does a Heel–Face Turn and faces no consequences for killing countless people through creating the dinosaurs.
• Kick the Dog: In the Christmas with the Kranks, Luther is said to not only not have a Pet the Dog moment like other unlikable protagonists, but he even goes so far as to accidentally step on and even freeze his cat.
  • The Pitch Meeting for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 calls the film out for weaponizing this trope in order to make the High Evolutionary as hateable as possible. The Screenwriter even demonstrates his strategy for "instant hatred" to the Producer by punching a drawing of a puppy, enraging the Producer so much that he threatens to nuke the Screenwriter's house.
• Killed Mid-Sentence: In the meeting for Avengers: Infinity War, the writer disintegrates in the middle of his catchphrase.
• Lame Pun Reaction:
  • While discussing The Suicide Squad, the Screenwriter says he wants John Cena for the role of Peacemaker, which prompts this exchange:
    Producer: Oh, you know what? I can't see him in that role. <Beat as the Screenwriter looks unimpressed> Because of his catchphrase.
    Screenwriter: I understand the joke, sir, I just hate it.
    Producer: That's fair.
  • In the Cocaine Bear pitch meeting, the Screenwriter plays with his catchphrase:
    Screenwriter: And so then everyone's going to end up at this cliff with, like, a waterfall, and it's dark, and Cocaine Bear's gonna show up!
    Producer: Uh-oh, gonna be tough to get away from Cocaine Bear now!
    Screenwriter: Actually, it's gonna be super easy, bearly an inconvenience!
    [the two stare at each other awkwardly for ten seconds]
    Producer: ...That was really good.
• Lampshade Hanging:
  • In the Halloween (1978) pitch meeting, both the Screenwriter and Producer realize it makes no sense for Michael Myers to know how to drive despite having spent most of his childhood, as well as his entire adolescence and adulthood, in a sanitarium. The Screenwriter decides to have the characters note how strange this is without explaining it "because a character pointed out it makes no sense, it's okay."
  • In Deadpool 2, the Screenwriter threw in a joke about "lazy writing" in order to cover up the various lazy choices he makes throughout the script.
• Lazy Bum: One interpretation of why the Screenwriter makes as many mistakes as he does. In numerous pitch meetings, he notes that he didn't bother doing any research because he didn't feel like it.
  • In the Venom (2018) pitch meeting, the Producer suggests a way to make the movie less convoluted- switch the Riot and Venom symbiotes around so that the former starts the movie inside the lab where it needs to end up, and the latter starts outside the lab where it can bond with Eddie. The Screenwriter, however, refuses, since despite the fact that filming hasn't started yet, he doesn't feel like changing it.
  • In the Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen pitch meeting, the inconsistencies with Transformers (2007) are because the Screenwriter forgot about the latter film and has no desire to rewatch it, albeit because he destroyed his DVD player while cooking a bagel.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: In the The Meg Pitch Meeting, the Producer acknowledges the fact that he looks identical to the Screenwriter. Apparently this was the result of plastic surgery.
• Leave Behind a Pistol: In the Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials pitch meeting, Winston's companions doing this for him is considered a remarkably stupid move, considering that they left behind their only usable gun.
• Leave the Camera Running: The Halloween (1978) film suffers from a lack of a budget, so the Screenwriter proposes having long drawn-out shots of scenes to pad the runtime.
• Let Me Get This Straight...: Used in the Home Alone pitch meeting.
  Producer: So just to be clear, we need to have all those extremely unlikely scenarios^note Kevin comes from a huge family, he starts a fight so he gets sent to sleep in the attic, his plane ticket gets thrown out by mistake, a storm takes out the phone lines and electricity so the only alarm clock in the house stops working, Kevin somehow manages to sleep through over a dozen people all frantically running around the house trying to make it to a flight, a small kid comes up to mess up the headcount that the parents are doing, and not a single person notices that Kevin is missing until after the flight has taken off play out, one after another, just to get this kid alone at home by himself?
  Screenwriter: That's right.
  Producer: And this um, suspension...
  Screenwriter: Suspension of disbelief.
  Producer: Right. With that, people will be okay with all of that?
  Screenwriter: Pfft, apparently, yeah.
  Producer: Allll of that. All of that.
  Screenwriter: Yeah, pretty cool, right?
  Producer: Well, then awesome.
• Leitmotif: In Zack Snyder's Justice League, the screenwriter shows Wonder Woman's, which plays whenever she's on screen and whenever the Amazons do something. For the rest of the pitch meeting the screenwriter plays the song whenever he mentions her name.
• Lighter and Softer: SHAZAM! is said to be an attempt at a course correction after the rest of the gritty DCEU movies. This, however, doesn't stop the Screenwriter from having an angsty teen protagonist or a main villain who murders his father, brother and several other people on-screen.
• The Load: In Army of the Dead, Kate exists to get everyone else on the team killed.
• Locked Out of the Loop: In the pitch meeting for The Hunger Games sequels, Katniss is not let in on the plan to escape the dome in Catching Fire until after the plan is carried out because it makes for a better twist.
• LOL, 69:
  • The Screenwriter says that The Suicide Squad being R-rated means they can show lots of gore and say things like "69" and "splooge", to which the Producer brightly responds, "69, that's the funny number! And the other stuff is gross! Very fun!"
  • On being told that the Screenwriter's new film is called 65, the Producer observes that it is four away from the funny number.
• The Long List:
  • The producer comes out with one of these when mentioning the product placement he already has lined up for Jurassic World:
    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.
  • In the Die Another Day pitch meeting, the Producer gives a long list of everything Gustav Graves accomplished in the fourteen months since he barely survived the opening sequence and got a new identity, from earning billions to becoming an Olympic-level fencer to being knighted, with the Screenwriter cheerfully adding to the list.
  • In the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 pitch meeting, the Screenwriter rattles off a list of everything the characters in the film survive.
  • In the The Force Awakens pitch meeting, the screenwriter says he's not going to borrow a lot of stuff from A New Hope, but lists most of the major story beats.
  • The Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire pitch meeting has the Screenwriter list all the characters he plans on including until the Producer begs him to stop, then providing another one after that.
• Low-Speed Chase:
  • When pitching the chase scene in The Book of Boba Fett involving "colorful Vespa scooters", the Screenwriter cheerily proclaims that "it'll be super slow-paced!"
  • In The Last Jedi, much of the film involves the First Order chasing the Resistance fleet until the Resistance runs out of fuel, tracking them through hyperspace, a sequence the Screenwriter doesn't consider interesting.

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