![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/wp-content\/themes\/vip\/pmc-hollywoodreporter-2021\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.gif\")
<\/p>\n\n\tLike most folks in this business, I grew up obsessed with movies. That obsession reached its peak of exuberant absurdity on a Friday in late July of 1995. I was 16 years old and about to head off on a multi-week family vacation, which meant I wouldn\u2019t be seeing a movie in the theater for two entire weeks. The horror. <\/p>\n
\n\tTo combat this injustice, my equally movie-obsessed friends and I came up with a plan for that weekend\u2019s new releases: we\u2019d see them all in one day. We saw The Net in the morning, then drove across town in my buddy\u2019s Saturn to see Waterworld in the afternoon, and then finished the night with a late showing of Harmony Korine and Larry Clark\u2019s Kids at the now-extinct Main Art Theater in Royal Oak, Michigan. The Net, Waterworld, and Kids in one day. Wrap your head around that cinematic hat trick.<\/p>\n
\n\tCut to three decades later and my writing career looks almost as eclectic as that Friday in July of \u201895. I\u2019ve written romantic comedies, animated movies, action movies, R-rated comedies, two seasons of an old-school multi-camera sitcom (and a third season where we did live broadcasts), mystery shows, superhero movies\u2026 I even hosted a Japanese game show once, but that, as they say, is a story for another time.<\/p>\n
\n\tBut the last few years have been more of the \u201cbig\u201d movies: monsters and supervillains wreak havoc, cities get destroyed, good guys save the world. And I love those movies, but there\u2019s no shortage of them these days. What I wasn\u2019t seeing as much anymore, and what I missed, were the movies about the universal experiences people go through and, more importantly, the people they go through them with.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe movies and filmmakers that made me want to do this in the first place: Cameron Crowe, John Hughes, Nora Ephron, Ivan Reitman, Rob Reiner, Chris Columbus, Amy Heckerling, Lawrence Kasdan\u2026<\/p>\n
\n\tSo, somewhat selfishly, my co-writer (and wife) Ellie Knaus and I wrote one of those movies. Let\u2019s Have Kids! is a comedy about two lifelong best friends who decide to get pregnant at the same time so they can navigate pregnancy and motherhood together, but find their friendship is tested when only one of them gets pregnant. The world isn\u2019t on the line, but their world is, and that\u2019s always felt like bigger stakes to me. <\/p>\n
\n\tI\u2019m not saying big movies don\u2019t make me feel big feelings. I cried when I watched Logan. A hard, ugly cry. On an airplane. A concerned flight attendant asked me if I was okay.<\/p>\n
\n\tBut with Let\u2019s Have Kids!, the first movie I\u2019ve directed, I wanted to explore the ideas and experiences Ellie and I had been living through for the past several years. Marriage, family, parenthood, career, friendship\u2026 and how those are all constantly reacting to and working with (and sometimes against) each other. To say the movie is personal is an understatement: from the big ideas about the value of female friendship, all the way down to the way Max Greenfield\u2019s character takes a bite out of an apple at an inopportune moment. (Ellie has told me, many times, that I \u201ceat apples like an asshole\u201d\u2026 and she\u2019s not wrong.) But it\u2019s not just personal to us. <\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tLet\u2019s Have Kids<\/p>\n
\n\tThroughout the filmmaking process, so many people shared their own moving and hilarious stories about their relationships, friendships, and families. That\u2019s the magic of movies about universal experiences: people see themselves in them. It\u2019s why I love movies like this. I watch them and I feel seen.<\/p>\n
\n\tI was working on a TV show recently, talking about movies between setups with an actor who will remain nameless (it was Vince Vaughn), and he said: \u201cHuman experience is still the best IP around.\u201d Not only do I agree with him, but I\u2019m reminded of my triple feature back in 1995. I honestly can\u2019t tell you the plot of The Net (I remember a scene on a beach). Or Waterworld (jet skis and an upside-down tattoo map?). And what Iremember most about Kids was me and my friends talking to some older, much cooler indie girls about the movie, in the parking lot, afterward. <\/p>\n
\n\tBut that\u2019s the point. The plot fades. The experience lasts. And the stories that capture those experiences and the feelings around them are the ones I\u2019m most excited to tell. I hope someone watches Let\u2019s Have Kids! and sees a bit of their own life in it. And, of course, I hope they remember who they watched it with.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n