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“Frat House” was, in fact, the
inspiration for “Old School,” though Phillips admits
it didn’t begin with him. “The genesis of this film
was inspired by a friend of mine in the advertising industry
named Court Crandall. He loved ‘Frat House,’ and
one day he said to me, ‘You know what would be funny
is a movie about older guys who start a fraternity of their
own.’ I told him he should write it, and he came back
with a loose version of what eventually became ‘Old School.’
”To write the screenplay for “Old
School,” Phillips once again collaborated with Scot Armstrong,
with whom he co-wrote the comedy hit “Road Trip.”
Armstrong reveals that for this script, he was able to pull
from his own past. “Yes, I admit it, I was in a fraternity,”
he says. “We were in Peoria, Illinois, so it was up to
us to entertain ourselves; a lot of ideas for ‘Old School’
came from things that really happened. When it was cold, everyone
would go stir crazy and it inspired some moments of brilliance.
Of course, my definition of ‘brilliance’ might be
different from other people’s. When you think about it,
adults acting juvenile is kind of what college is all about.
I mean, when you’re in college you have a chance to be
an adult, but more often than not, at least in my case, you
choose to act like an idiot…because you can.”
Armstrong continues, “‘Old School’
is a comedy about avoiding responsibility. You have these
three guys who take a good look at themselves and their futures
and decide to regress. Much of the comedy comes from them
attempting to manage their normal lives, with wives, kids,
jobs… while still trying to be in a fraternity, which,
obviously, is preposterous.”
The film also reunited Phillips with the
team at The Montecito Picture Company who produced his major
film debut “Road Trip,” including executive producers
Ivan Reitman and Tom Pollock, and producers Daniel Goldberg
and Joe Medjuck. The director notes that Reitman, a veteran
of so many hit comedies, including the seminal fraternity
movie “National Lampoon’s Animal House,” was
invaluable in the development of “Old School.”
“Ivan is amazing,” Phillips attests.
“He’s a great developer of scripts and he helped
Scot and me more than anything. He really knows plot structure
and character development and all the nuts and bolts of writing
a great comedy that Scot and I are, frankly, still learning.
He’s just on top of it. In fact,” he adds, laughing,
“Scot and I called it ‘boot camp,’ because
we were at his house, writing and rewriting every day for
two months.” Read
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