"Ugly Truth" writers paint pretty picture

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - In Hollywood things are rarely as they seem.
Case in point: Karen McCullah Lutz & Kirsten Smith were talking about writing the romantic comedy "The Ugly Truth," opening July 24 via Lakeshore Entertainment and Columbia.
Robert Luketic directed "Ugly." He directed "Legally Blonde." Lutz and Smith wrote "Blonde." It grossed almost $100 million and jumpstarted Luketic's directing career. So it figures -- Luketic hired them to write "Ugly."




Well, actually, no. Luketic was hired after the duo finished rewriting a screenplay Nicole Eastman had written 10 years earlier. "It was one of those scripts that had been floating around for a while," Karen recalled. "At one point Gwyneth Paltrow and Ben Affleck were attached. That's when they were dating. That's how long it's been."
So how'd they get the job? Lutz: "Lakeshore called us up and asked if we wanted to rewrite it and we said yes."
Yes, but there's more to it than that. Lutz and Smith also wrote the 2006 romantic comedy "She's the Man," which starred Amanda Bynes.
Smith: "Lakeshore were financiers on it. DreamWorks had hired us to work on it. We'd never really gotten to know Tom and Gary at Lakeshore (chairman & CEO Tom Rosenberg and president Gary Lucchesi) so we decided one day that we should remedy that." So they sat down to talk to Rosenberg and "the very first thing he brought up was the script 'The Ugly Truth.'"
"We started talking about it and it led to a really great partnership with them."

In "Ugly" Katherine Heigl plays Abby Richter, a romantically challenged morning show producer seeking Mr. Perfect, but still hopelessly single. The plot thickens when she's teamed up with the show's new in-your-face reporter Mike Chadway (Gerard Butler) who knows "the ugly truth" about what makes men and women tick.... more here