No Hollywood genre has been quite as strange as the loose ensemble comedy adaptation of a non-fiction guidebook. Woody Allen first paved the way by dressing up as a sperm for Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex But Were Afraid to Ask, but that was it for three decades.
However, now we're in the midst of a full-blown revival. First came 2009's He's Just Not That Into You, based on a self-help book, and this month we'll see an adaptation of the 14 million-selling pregnancy guide What to Expect When You're Expecting. If this new film can repeat the worldwide $178m gross of He's Just Not That Into You, you can guarantee that even more will follow. So Hollywood, if you're listening, here are four gold-plated guidebook adaptation pitches for you. Call me.
Control Stress: Stop Worrying and Feel Good Now! by Paul McKenna
Matthew McConaughey, Kate Hudson, Ashton Kutcher and any of the women from Glee are all abnormally stressed – they either have high-pressured jobs, frantic home lives or, in the case of Kutcher, a bizarre fear of spoons. Eventually they all meet hypnotist Peter McKenton, who brings calm to their lives by asking them to keep a gratitude diary. Apart from Kutcher, who can't keep his diary because he keeps mistaking pens for spoons, they are all quickly cured of their stress and, for the sake of it, fall in love.
How to Get Top Rankings with SEO Made Simple by William Paterson
Sandra Bullock plays a put-upon blogger who can't understand why her blog (about cats and what she just ate) isn't being read by more people. Eventually, with the help of her friend Jack Black (a traditional Hollywood internet fanatic who sits in the dark all day listening to techno, writing green-on-black code, reading everything he writes out loud and shouting at his mother to leave him alone), she learns how to optimise her website for search engines. Meanwhile, a high-powered Google executive (played by Ben Affleck in a suit and ponytail) notices a little blog shooting up the rankings for the search terms "cats" and "things I just ate". Slowly, he begins to fall in love ...
Home Taxidermy for Pleasure and Profit by Albert B Farnham
In this adaptation of the wildly popular 1944 taxidermy guide, Bradley Cooper, Ashton Kutcher and Tom Hanks all play competing taxidermists keen to woo a selection of local girls (Julia Roberts, Meg Ryan, Cameron Diaz, Kate Winslet) with their ability to stuff dead animals into a selection of interesting poses. However, their methods differ wildly. Cooper favours mounting the heads of large game on to walls, while Hanks prefers to stuff and mount fish using the controversial Baumgartel method. Kutcher, meanwhile, likes dressing up dead cats in little tuxedos and keeping them for company. In the end, the girls fall for their skill, dedication and big box of glass eyes, and everyone falls in love.
Fiat Punto Petrol Service and Repair Manual: Oct 1999 to July 2003 (Haynes Service and Repair Manuals) by John S Mead
Matthew McConaughey plays a Fiat Punto 1.6 90 ELX water pump who just wants to find love. Sure, he gets to hang out with his buddies Ben Affleck, Bradley Cooper and a supporting actor from Lost (playing, respectively, a Fiat Punto 1.6 90 ELX fuel injector, a Fiat Punto 1.6 90 ELX front passenger door and a Fiat Punto 1.6 90 ELX rear axle), but there's something missing from his life. But then one day he meets a sexy young Fiat Punto 1.6 90 ELX air con radiator fan played by Jennifer Lopez. They're two different people from two completely different worlds but, wouldn't you know it, they end up falling in love.
