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'Pets,' 'Minions' screenwriter looks back on an unexpected journey into animated film
IF FAMILY ANIMATION is often treated as the red-headed stepchild of the film industry, and screenwriters are the red-headed stepchildren of film's creative hierarchy, then where does that leave a screenwriter who specializes in family animation? In the case of Brian Lynch, the answer is this: thriving and contributing to films that have accumulated a billion dollars at the B.O.
Over the past decade, Lynch has become the go-to screenwriter for a slew of Illumination's biggest animated kidpics, from "Hop" to "Minions" (follow-up "Minions: The Rise of Gru" is on tap for 2020) to "The Secret Life of Pets," with "The Secret Life of Pets 2," which grossed $34.5 million at the box office by June 7. But Lynch's evolution into an all-around children's scribe, he also writes young-adult novels for Scholastic, wasn't something he could have predicted.
"Other than the Muppets, I really didn't watch many kids' movies as a child," Lynch says. "So I think the family scripts I did still had an element of comedy that was inspired by more adult movies. I wasn't inspired by old Disney movies when I wrote my kids' movies, I was inspired by '9 to 5,' 'Tootsie,' even 'Wayne's World.'"
Nor was his path to Hollywood a typical one.
"I always knew I wanted to write movies," Lynch says. "But I didn't think it was a real possibility until I saw Kevin do it."
The Kevin in question is Kevin Smith, whom fellow New Jersey native Lynch met through Vincent Pereira, a childhood friend that worked with Smith at the convenience store-video store he immortalized in his breakthrough debut, "Clerks." Smith immediately sought to spread the wealth, giving Pereira funding to shoot his own microbudget debut, "A Better Place." Pereira called in his old friend Lynch as an all-purpose assistant during shooting.
"I think I got an associate producer credit, but that was kinda glorified - I was more like the gofer," Lynch says. He did, however, get a small role in the film, as a "nervous Tom Arnold type" playing comic relief in the otherwise gritty drama. This led to a similarly small part in Smith's "Chasing Amy," and...