We Asked Author Shea Serrano What Movies Must Be Made

In chapter 27 of Movies (and Other Things), Shea Serrano‘s film genius becomes crystal clear. Though titled “Which race was white-saviored the best by Kevin Costner?” Serrano quickly dispatches with that question (Mexicans, McFarland USA) and uses the rest of the space to share a series of movie lists. He ranks, swiftly and confidently, the bad luck of Brad Pitt characters’ love interests, the best post-1997 rom-com performances by actors not named Julia Roberts, the most unexpected onscreen guitar performances, and more. The chapter—and his book as a whole—is a master class in engaging with movies at eye level, no matter if they’re from the oeuvre of Jean-Claude Van Damme or Robert De Niro.

The book, which hits shelves tomorrow, is Serrano’s fourth. His first, a coloring book he wrote with Houston rapper Bun B, was followed by The Rap Yearbook, which took on the genre one year at a time. Basketball (and Other Things), like the book that came before it, became a New York Times best seller on the strength of both its topic and Serrano’s Twitter presence. On top of an expertise in southern rap, the WNBA, and the work of Gerard Butler and Josh Hartnett, Serrano has a sixth sense for social media marketing. His #FOHArmy is one of the most engaged followings on Twitter. Serrano’s fans can spring into action to raise money ($134,000 for Hurricane Harvey relief in a single night), shop independent on Prime Day, or preorder the hell out of his new book.

The #FOHArmy (click here if you don’t understand the acronym) would also likely crash Fandango if Serrano ever made a movie. So, before some studio wises up and hands its keys to the San Antonio-based author, WIRED decide to ask Serrano to put on his Kevin Feige hat and make (up) some movies. We gave him a blank checkbook, full creative control, and the power to grab hold of any studio’s IP. Then we asked him to lay out his three-year plan for the #FOH Cinematic Universe. Here are the movies he came up with.

Fast 10 (May 2021)

Shea Serrano: We gotta get Zendaya in the Fast franchise. It makes too much sense. She’s funny. She’s tough. And we found out in Euphoria that she’s also an incredible actor. Let’s grab her before she gets too, too famous.

She’s gonna be Vin Diesel’s half sister. He’d heard rumors that his dad had this other family, but he wasn’t sure if it was true. Turns out: It was.

The obvious thing here is that you have to send them to space. You do the whole “I don’t need gravity, I’ve got family” right before Dominic Toretto jumps into outer space with no suit. But we’re gonna go the other way. We shouldn’t get bigger; we should get smaller. It’s street races again.

We introduce the half sister. Guess what? She’s the best at street racing. Guess what? We finally see Dom get beat in a race he tried to win. He’ll lose to Zendaya, and it’s gonna be the official, “This is your franchise now.” There it is. That’s what we’re doing.

White Men Still Can’t Jump (Christmas 2021)

SS: I want Wesley Snipes. I want Woody Harrelson. I want Rosie Perez. I want the Stucci brothers. I want everybody back. And I don’t know what the story is, but I know what the trailer is.

No press is coming out about this movie. We’re not telling anybody that we’re doing it. We’re sneak-attacking everybody. Then, one day, there’s just a trailer that pops up on Twitter.

The trailer’s shot in black and white, and we see a court in the distance and there’s a person shooting on it. And he’s just swishing everything, on the court all by himself. Cut in closer, we see his body, his back, his hands. It’s a black guy just nailing everything. Forty-five seconds of this shit. Just beautiful—like David Fincher in The Social Network when he’s shooting the race.

Finally, he shoots, and we follow the ball, and it bounces off the rim. It’s rolling on the court—rolling, rolling, rolling—and then a shoe stops it, and it’s that old Nike sneaker. We see some hands reach down and grab the ball, the camera’s panning and finally we get to the face and it’s Woody Harrelson. He makes that big goofy smile and then: boom! “White Men Still Can’t Jump.” And the place goes fucking nuts. We’re gonna own Twitter and Instagram for at least eight hours just off the trailer.

Diamonds & Wood: The Pimp C Story (October 2022)

SS: For a rap biopic, you can’t do somebody who’s still alive. You can’t do Jay-Z or Nas. So, you have to go the other way. Something a little more Hustle & Flow. You need a character like that. So, we need the Pimp C story. That’s what we need.

You need a cool character. You need a couple of high-point moments where everybody goes, “Oh yeah, I remember that. That was him?” And then you just get to play around in the Pimp C story. There are death threats. There’s the Master P angle. The Jay-Z angle. That’s the one we should do.

The bad version of this movie is called It’s Pimp C, B****. That’s the Lifetime movie version. But if we’re doing the real version, the version I’m pitching to you, I think you have to call it either Pocket Full of Stones or, wait—I kind of like Diamonds & Wood. It grabs ahold of you. But the studio would probably scrap that and say, “We’re going to call it Ridin’ Dirty.”

If Three 6 Mafia can win an Oscar, our Pimp C biopic can win an Oscar too.

Untitled Josh Hartnett Body-Swap Movie (Christmas 2022)

SS: I want the Josh Hartnett body-swap movie. That’s what I want. I like those movies where you’re like, “OK, this is the premise of the movie? I got it. I’m in.” And the body-swap genre is one of those. He can be a dad. He can be an uncle. He can be somebody’s cousin. And he’s getting swapped out into a new body.

Oh, you know what we should do? Apologies to Josh Hartnett, but we’re gonna put you in a movie that just gets shredded to bits. We’re gonna have you swap places with a young black actor, with Shameik Moore. And it’s gonna be one of those movies where you see the trailer and immediately go like, “What the fuck? Why did you do this?” Josh Hartnett is gonna do that.

There was a movie about a white guy who starts calling into a radio station and he pretends to be a black woman. It’s called Loqueesha. How about that? That’s the actual title of the movie. We’re gonna do one of those. Our studio is doing so well right now that we need the PR nightmare.

299 (Memorial Day 2023)

SS: This such an obvious answer, and I’m already mad at myself for saying it, but I really enjoyed 300—that was one of the best versions of Gerard Butler that we’ve had. So let’s do that again. Instead of 300, we’re gonna do 299. That’s what we’re gonna call it.

This is gonna be the opposite of our Hartnett movie. People are gonna see the trailer and think that it’ll be terrible. But then the movie’s gonna come out and everybody’s gonna go like, “Wow, that was really well done. I didn’t think that they could pull this off, and they did.” And Gerard Butler will finally get his acclaim as a good actor.

It’s a prequel. Maybe we’ll see the rise of King Leonides. Or something like that. We’ll figure that part out in the room. Let’s just get this thing sold first.

299. In theaters soon.

Untitled Michael Peña Taco Truck Movie (September 2023)

SS: We need a Michael Peña food truck movie. He’s a vendor in Los Angeles. He’s got a taco truck—does it become really famous? Or is this just a human story? He works this job and he makes enough money for his family to live. We get to see him really act. They were trying to get that out of him in that Cesar Chavez movie that ended up not being that great, but he was unbelievable in End of Watch.

Let’s put a camera on Michael Peña for 95 minutes and just let him go get us another Oscar. It’s time for us to go back to the Oscars. Michael Peña’s taking us there.

This might be my favorite one that we’ve just come up with. I’m gonna pitch this one for real.

Untitled ​Tom Hanks Villain Movie (Halloween 2023)

SS: We’ve seen Leonardo DiCaprio as a villain. We’ve seen Denzel Washington. Let me get the Tom Hanks villain movie.

He’s gonna come off of playing Mr. Rogers. He’s gonna be in that Oscar conversation. And I’m gonna get in his ear and be like, “This is what we need to do, Tom. We need to go the opposite direction, Tom. We need to have you kill a child in a movie just for fun.” Who would ever expect it?

We’re gonna do the trailer like they did with Insomnia. Before the internet spoiled trailers, the first time you found out about movies was in the theater. I was at the theater with my wife—who was at the time my girlfriend—and the trailer starts for Insomnia, and it’s Al Pacino doing his whole Al Pacino bit. You hear this voiceover and then you kinda recognize a voice but not really, but it’s clearly the bad guy talking. We’re getting quick shots of Pacino in action and then they cut to this person looking over the edge of the boat that Pacino’s on. Pacino walks up to him, and then the face turns and it’s Robin Williams. I remember everything inside of me dropping out of my butthole when I saw Robin Williams was going to be a killer in a movie! We’re talking about Jack. We’re talking about Patch Adams. We’re talking about the nicest guy. Mrs. Doubtfire is gonna be murdering people?

Imagine what the internet looks like when we tell everybody that Woody from Toy Story is fuckin’ slitting throats in a movie. If you get Tom Hanks to play a villain in a movie, it doesn’t matter what the movie is. People have to watch that. You 100 percent have to see this movie.

Shea Serrano’s Movies (and Other Things) hits stores October 8.

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