The Ugly Americans - Yahoo! Movies

Release Date: TBA 2004 (wide)

Title Note: (3/8/03) The title, 'The Ugly Americans', is tentative and will most likely be changed before the film gets released. One big reason (and I'm just guessing) for the change might be the growing anti-American sentiment that's already happening in some international markets because of the U.S.-Iraq situation; an American movie called 'The Ugly Americans' might just be asking for trouble.

Distributor: Dreamworks Pictures

Production Company: The Montecito Picture Company (Old School, Road Trip)

Cast: Michelle Trachtenberg (Mieke), Travis Wester (Scotty Thomas), Jacob Pitts (Cooper); other cast not announced yet.

Cast Notes: (3/8/03) This movie feels like a "star maker" for the three young stars, two of which are currently "unknowns", with the third known among certain fan circles. Jacob Pitts has had a few roles in independent and made-for-TV movies; the highest-profile film was K-19: The Widowmaker, where he played one of the Russian sailors. Travis Wester has done mostly TV work, like a year on Beverly Hills, 90210, with his only feature film role being a tiny one in Teddy Bears' Picnic. 17-year-old Michelle Trachtenberg is the (relative) "star" between the three of them, with a successful career as a child actress (she played Harriet the Spy and "Penny" in Inspector Gadget) and a prominent role (as "Dawn) in the fan favorite TV series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Director: Alec Berg, David Mandel and Jeff Schaffer (feature film debuts)

Director Notes: (3/8/03) "Variety" reported recently (2/25/03) that the Directors Guild of America has shot down the possiblity of Alec Berg, David Mandel and Jeff Schaffer all receiving a "directing trio" credit (even though they still intend to direct the film as a trio). How exactly the director credit will read is still yet to be determined, whether it be one of the three taking the credit or (I think this might happen) perhaps a pseudonym that represents all three.

Screenwriter: Alec Berg David Mandel and Jeff Schaffer (writing team of Dr. Seuss' The Cat in the Hat)

Screenwriter Notes: (3/8/03) The June, 2002 sale of this script to Montecito Pictures was priced at over $3 million, making it one of the largest in filmmaking history (the record belongs to the $4 million New Line paid Shane Black for the script to 1996's The Long Kiss Goodnight. The fact that it's split across three writers, however, prevents it from ranking as one of the biggest "single" deals. The huge sale was the result of a bidding war that included New Line Cinema, Revolution Studios, Warner Bros and Dreamworks itself (where Montecito has a distribution deal). The three-man writing team met while working in television as members of the "Seinfeld" writing department. Berg and Schaffer also worked together on "Herman's Head", while Mandel's resume includes "Saturday Night Live" and the animated version of "Clerks".

Premise Note: (3/8/03) This movie's premise shares similarities with two recent comedy hits. Like Bringing Down the House, the premise gets its start by someone's confusion over "who's who" in a photograph as part of a pen pal/e-mail relationship. Like American Pie, the premise also involves the relationship between a high school senior boy and an European girl (and there had even been reports/rumors at one point that the premise of American Pie 2 might have followed "Jim" and friends to Europe to hang out with Nadia, which would have made the two films nearly identical... but that obviously didn't really happen).

Premise: When the German pen pal that a high school student, Scotty (Wester), has been using to help him get an "A" in German (by translating his homework over the Internet) for years suggests that they meet, the boy's reaction is to freak out, thinking that "Mieke" is a) a guy and b) some sort of older sexual stalker, looking for a young boyfriend. When he discovers to his delight that his pen pal is actually a cute fraulein (Trachtenberg), he and his best friend, Cooper (Pitts (who tries to con his summer internship boss into thinking he's still in America), fly to Europe after graduation to meet her...

Filming: Production is scheduled to start in April, 2003 in Prague, the Czech Republic (with possibly some location shoots elsewhere in Europe) on a budget of $20 million.

Genre: Comedy, Romance, Teen