Justin: The Minnesota writers behind the ‘Sonic the Hedgehog’ series embrace making silly movies

This is the season for Oscar-bait films designed to make you stroke your chin until your hand goes numb.

Bloomington natives Pat Casey and Josh Miller don’t make those kinds of movies. But don’t feel bad for them. Their scripts for 2020′s “Sonic the Hedgehog” and its 2022 sequel were big reasons the franchise has grossed more than $700 million at the box office, a fortune that will dramatically increase with last Friday’s release of “Sonic the Hedgehog 3.”

The latest, in which our speedy hero (voiced by Ben Schwartz) must once again save his adopted planet Earth from the evil Dr. Robotnik (Jim Carrey), won’t end up on any critic’s Top 10 list. But it’s a reminder that goofy fun is just as necessary to our well-being as a Meryl Streep weeper.

“Certainly when we go to someone’s office and they have an Oscar, I get a little jealous. But that’s not something we think about. That way lies folly,” Casey said during a Zoom call on Dec. 16, two days after the film’s star-studded premiere party in Los Angeles. “We get pretty good reviews. But if you’re making a movie for the critics or trying to win an Oscar, what are you even doing? You should be making a movie for the people who are going to watch it, so they have a good time.”

The youngsters at the advance screening I went to last week had a blast, especially when actors dressed as the beloved video game characters roamed the aisles. Once the film began, there was plenty to keep them entertained — mostly flatulence jokes and sight gags, like when Robotnik beats on his potbelly like it’s a bongo drum.

But Casey and Miller’s scripts also play to adults. The third installment spoofs the “Mission: Impossible” movies, telenovelas and Comic-Con. There’s even a one-liner about Bea Arthur.

“The sensibility was always that it wasn’t going to just be a kids’ movie,” said Miller, who, like his writing partner, is in his mid-40s. “That’s the Jim Carrey special sauce. He’s so goofy, it seems like he’s aiming for kids, but he’s not. He’s Jim Carrey.”

The pair couldn’t have imagined they’d one day be writing for the comic superstar when they first met during detention in junior high. They really bonded a few years later when they both signed up to work on a live sketch show that aired Saturday nights on Bloomington’s public access channel. One of the bits they developed as teenagers would serve as the inspiration for their 2022 hit “Violent Night,” an over-the-top thriller in which David Harbour’s Santa Claus takes on mercenaries. A sequel is about to go into production.

Their early credits in Hollywood didn’t exactly endear them to critics: 2003′s “National Lampoon’s Dorm Daze,” has a 0% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, 2009′s “Transylmania” had one of the most dismal opening weekends ever for a widely released film, and their animated series “Golan the Insatiable,” set in Minnesota, was canceled after 18 episodes.

But the team never abandoned its approach.

“Honestly, I don’t think we worry that much about respect,” Casey said. “We always have to have the undertone of silliness.”

Few embrace that philosophy with more gusto that fellow Minnesotan Pat Proft. Films like “Mr. Magoo,” “Bachelor Party,” “Scary Movie 3″ and others that benefited from his contributions continue to resonate years after film snobs dismissed them.

“I was wearing some of my ‘Hot Shots!’ swag the other day and people stopped me and said, ‘You’ve got to do more of these,’” Proft said in a phone interview last week. “I even got 30% off on my shoes from the sales guy. I’ve got to wear my swag more often.”

Proft hasn’t seen the “Sonic” movies or met the screenwriters behind them, but he loves the way they are navigating their careers.

“When we were doing ‘Hot Shots!’ Charlie Sheen asked me how he should play it,” said the 77-year-old veteran who still writes out of his Medina home. “I said, ‘I want you to go for an Oscar. Think of this as a dramatic movie.’ When I wrote for Leslie Nielsen (”The Naked Gun”), I was writing for Humphrey Bogart. More than anything else, you want to have a dramatic situation, a story that makes sense, and then be silly. Except we don’t call it silly. We call it really stupid. Stupid is wonderful.”

Casey and Miller might eventually tackle something a bit more sophisticated. After all, Peter Farrelly, half of the team behind “Dumb and Dumber,” went on to direct “Green Book.”

“I never thought I’d live in a world where a Farrelly brother would win an Oscar,” Miller said. “But he clearly wasn’t thinking about that until decades into a very successful career.”

But the longtime buddies are in no hurry to grow up.

“A weepy cancer drama is the one thing I don’t think we’re going to tackle anytime soon,” Casey said. “The best you can do is make good films and win an Oscar accidentally.”