It's 2003 right now, and over the next few years, teen movies centered on 16- or 17-year-old girls are gonna be a total mixed bag. Some will blow up huge; others will be in theaters for like a week and then vanish without a trace.
The ones that explode all seem to have one thing in common: the lead girl has personality for days. Think Juno (2007, but it won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay in 2008) or Mean Girls (2004, massive box-office hit). Juno's effortlessly cool; Regina George and her crew are straight-up mean-girl icons.
Sure, American audiences have always loved the classic "sweetheart" or "girl-next-door" types, but teens are getting seriously over the squeaky-clean "good girl" image their parents keep pushing. They're way more into anti-hero, rebellious, "I don't give a crap" vibes right now.
That's exactly why a teen pregnancy movie like Sixteen and Pregnant (or whatever the 2003 version would've been called) flops hard, while Juno is still quoted nonstop today: because Juno is cool as hell. Same deal with high-school chick flicks: some random forgettable one disappears after seven days, but Mean Girls spawns a whole franchise because Regina and Cady are iconic, manipulative queens.
Bottom line: in the mid-2000s, if your teen movie or rom-com doesn't have a lead girl with a strong, distinctive edge, good luck getting anybody to care.
Most people in 2003 haven't quite figured that out yet. They're still churning out the same old "average nice girl" stories like it's 1999. Joey, though? She already knows the secret sauce. If she wants a hit, her heroine has to stand out.
Second big thing: tone and perspective.
By 2003, straight-up family dramas have been tanking at the box office for years. They're usually cold, bleak, and miserable because directors think "serious = depressing." Audiences are burned out on that vibe. That's why, in just a couple years, stuff like Little Miss Sunshine and Juno will feel so fresh: they take heavy family issues and wrap them in warm, quirky comedy instead of icy despair.
Third: the hot new sub-genre that's about to take over.
In the next few years, Hollywood is gonna fall hard for what you could call "loser-family dark comedy-dramas." Stories about dysfunctional families navigating real American problems: money stress, divorce, addiction, whatever, told through funny, awkward, everyday moments instead of straight tragedy.
Nobody in 2003 sees it coming, but Sideways in 2004 is gonna sweep awards and kick the whole trend off. Then you get sharp ones like Juno, messy ones like The Savages, heartwarming ones like Little Miss Sunshine, all raking in cash and critical love because they nail that exact bittersweet "we're all kinda failing but it's okay" energy.
If Joey hadn't been reborn with fifty years of future movie knowledge in her head, she probably wouldn't have realized that the "sweet klutz" heroine everyone's using right now is played out, or that cold family dramas are on their way out, or that quirky loser-family comedies are about to be the next big thing.
But she does know. And if the audience is hungry for it, she's gonna give them exactly what they want.
Her original script for Harvard Bound (or whatever cringe title she had) was total mediocrity. Perfect grades, supportive family, super wholesome, mildly chilly tone to feel "deep." It was the kind of script that screams "straight to DVD." Change the title and it could've been called Perfect Life. No edge, no hook, no wonder distributors passed.
So Joey scraps the whole thing and starts over. The basic plot stays: girl trying to get into Harvard while her family falls apart and puts itself back together around her. But now she's pouring in everything she learned from the next five decades of hits.
She's not outright copying anything; she's just building her movie with the ingredients she knows work. Will it actually land? No clue. But she's gotta try.
Oh, and that awful title Harvard Bound? Gone. The main character's name happens to be Juno anyway, so the new title is just… Juno. Yeah, totally different from the 2007 indie smash. Whatever, it works.
Step one of the comeback: rewrite the script from scratch.
She's got six months, thanks to Renee co-signing and staving off the creditors. Joey holes up in her messy apartment and gets to work.
One afternoon she's deep in it, surrounded by coffee cups and crumpled pages, black-rimmed glasses sliding down her nose, pounding away on her clunky 2003 laptop.
Renee shows up with pizza, takes one look at the disaster zone, and winces. "Girl, I'm impressed you've survived in this pigsty for a whole week."
Joey doesn't even look up.
Renee sets the pizza down, then smacks Joey on the head with a notebook. "Eat something before you die! Women on a post-breakup warpath are terrifying."
Joey shoots her a death glare. "It was a mutual breakup. It's called a glow-up."
Renee cracks up and hops onto the desk. "You know who's gotta be thrilled about this split? Sumner Redstone. The guy's been trashing his grandson in public for dating 'a girl like you.'"
Joey stays calm. "He never says the quiet part out loud, but I know exactly how much he looks down on me."
Renee tugs at her own blonde hair and shrugs. People always side-eye their friendship: white Midwestern girl and -American Joey, but Renee doesn't care. She loves Joey's vibe.
She pats Joey's shoulder. "Forget them. You're out here grinding like a maniac. We're gonna shove their prejudice right back in their faces. They only hate on you because you're Asian; they've got their racist little glasses on. Half the tabloids that dragged you did it because you've got yellow skin and they love watching 'one of us' fail. And Hollywood loves tearing women down, period. Female directors have to fight twice as hard because the boys' club still runs the show."
Joey stretches, leans back in her chair, and yawns. "Exactly. Which is why I'm getting back up. They can say I slept my way to the top, that I'm a one-hit wonder, that I've got nothing left in the tank; I don't care. I just want to keep going and actually make the movies I believe in." She grabs Renee's wrist. "Seriously though, thank you. Without you co-signing for those six months, I'd be homeless right now."
Renee glances at the laptop screen, still worried. "Yeah, but… are you sure this is gonna work? You seem way more confident than before, but even if the script slaps, where are we getting the money to actually reshoot?"
Joey frowns. That part is a nightmare, but she's got an idea. "I'm gonna try the Directors Guild. They've got an emergency fund that loans money to directors and producers who are strapped, as long as the board thinks your project's legit."
R bribe still looks skeptical. "Right, but you have to submit the script, storyboards, a whole pitch package… and we both know half those Guild guys are shady as hell and take bribes under the table."
Joey rubs her temples. "Yeah, it's a long shot. But I'm flat broke and the bank's about to foreclose on my life. Gotta try something."
This time, no matter how brutal it gets, she's not giving up. Last time she walked away from her dreams to save face. This time? Even if she has to crawl through broken glass alone, she's seeing it through.