# Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer
**Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer** are an American-Canadian screenwriting and directing team known for parody films that spoof current blockbuster trends. Friedberg (born 1971 in [Newark, New Jersey](https://www.edgepedia.org/newark-new-jersey)) and Seltzer (born 1974 in [Mississauga](https://www.edgepedia.org/mississauga), Ontario) began as screenwriters on *Spy Hard* (1996) and received shared credit on *Scary Movie* (2000), then directed a string of spoofs beginning with *[Date Movie](https://www.edgepedia.org/date-movie)* (2006). Their films were commercially successful but critically savaged, and their names became shorthand among critics for the perceived decline of the theatrical spoof.[1](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/celebrity/jason_friedberg) • [2](https://www.fandango.com/people/aaron-seltzer-611619/biography)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Born | Friedberg: 1971, Newark, New Jersey; Seltzer: 1974, Mississauga, Ontario[1](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/celebrity/jason_friedberg) |
| Education | University of California, Santa Barbara; Seltzer majored in art history, Friedberg in history; neither attended film school[2](https://www.fandango.com/people/aaron-seltzer-611619/biography) |
| First credit | *Spy Hard* (1996), a Leslie Nielsen espionage spoof directed by Friedberg's father Rick Friedberg[1](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/celebrity/jason_friedberg) |
| Directing debut | *Date Movie* (2006), followed by *Epic Movie* (2007), *Meet the Spartans* and *Disaster Movie* (both 2008)[1](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/celebrity/jason_friedberg) |
| Box office | Their filmography through *The Starving Games* grossed more than half a billion dollars worldwide[3](https://grantland.com/features/surely-they-cant-be-serious/) |
| Critical reception | Rotten Tomatoes scores from 52% (*Scary Movie*, as writers) down to 0% (*The Starving Games*, *Best Night Ever*); numerous Razzie nominations[1](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/celebrity/jason_friedberg) |
| Later output | *Vampires Suck* (2010), *The Starving Games* (2013), *Best Night Ever* (2013), and *Superfast!* (2015)[1](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/celebrity/jason_friedberg) |
## Early lives and education
Friedberg was born in Newark, New Jersey, and is the son of Rick Friedberg, a television producer and director whose credits include TV commercials and music videos such as [Van Halen](https://www.edgepedia.org/van-halen)'s "Hot for Teacher." Seltzer came from a family of shoe salesmen in Mississauga, Ontario. The two met at the [University of California, Santa Barbara](https://www.edgepedia.org/university-of-california-santa-barbara), and bonded over a love of film, especially comedy. Neither studied film: Seltzer majored in art history and [Friedberg](https://www.edgepedia.org/friedberg) in history, but a film class on Martin Scorsese in their last semester pushed both toward show business.[1](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/celebrity/jason_friedberg) • [2](https://www.fandango.com/people/aaron-seltzer-611619/biography)
While students, they wrote screenplays at night and paid their way with day jobs: selling homemade T-shirts, running a food delivery service, and, after graduation, opening two shoe stores in Los Angeles in the Seltzer family business.[1](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/celebrity/jason_friedberg) • [3](https://grantland.com/features/surely-they-cant-be-serious/)
## Screenwriting: Spy Hard and Scary Movie
Their first break came through Friedberg's father. Rick Friedberg was directing [Leslie Nielsen](https://www.edgepedia.org/leslie-nielsen) in the parody instructional video *Leslie Nielsen's Bad Golf Made Easier* (1993) when his son showed him a script the pair had written for fun, the espionage spoof *Spy Hard*. Nielsen liked it, and it became a 1996 film directed by the elder Friedberg.[1](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/celebrity/jason_friedberg)
The team's most consequential credit is *Scary Movie* (2000). A spoof they wrote, initially titled *Scream If You Know What I Did Last Summer*, was sold and eventually folded into the project, and a Writers Guild decision credited all six writers: Shawn and [Marlon Wayans](https://www.edgepedia.org/marlon-wayans), Buddy Johnson, Phil Beauman, Friedberg, and Seltzer. The credit is disputed. The Wayanses have said Friedberg and Seltzer did not work on the final script, and a Variety review of the film described a script combined from two independently conceived scenarios; the duo parted ways with the project after the sale, so the finished film's direction rested with the Wayanses and director [Keenen Ivory Wayans](https://www.edgepedia.org/keenen-ivory-wayans).[4](https://cinefilesreviews.com/2022/08/20/the-friedberg-seltzer-massacre-how-two-men-single-handedly-destroyed-the-parody-genre/) Whatever their actual contribution, the credit mattered commercially: *Scary Movie* took in $278 million worldwide on a $19 million budget, and the duo marketed themselves as "two of the six writers of Scary Movie," a tagline printed on the *Date Movie* poster.[5](https://ufdcimages.uflib.ufl.edu/UF/00/09/89/64/04300/02-17-2017.pdf) • [6](https://cinefilesreviews.com/2022/08/)
## Directing career
Tired of seeing their scripts languish in development, and with [Regency Enterprises](https://www.edgepedia.org/regency-enterprises) unable to find a director for a romantic-comedy spoof they had sold, the pair took the director's chairs themselves with *Date Movie* (2006), working with their longtime producer [Peter Safran](https://www.edgepedia.org/peter-safran). They then directed their own scripts at a fast pace: *Epic Movie* (2007), *Meet the Spartans* (2008), *Disaster Movie* (2008), *Vampires Suck* (2010), *The Starving Games* (2013), and the *Fast and Furious* parody *[Superfast!](https://www.edgepedia.org/superfast)* (2015).[2](https://www.fandango.com/people/aaron-seltzer-611619/biography) • [1](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/celebrity/jason_friedberg)
The formula stayed consistent. Each film recreated the plot of a recent hit and peppered it with references to other current movies, television shows, and celebrities: *Meet the Spartans* spoofed *300*, *Vampires Suck* targeted the *Twilight* series, *The Starving Games* took on *The Hunger Games*, and *Superfast!* parodied street-racing films.[1](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/celebrity/jason_friedberg) • [7](https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/film/from-blazing-to-blazes-the-decline-of-the-spoof-1.681109) They preferred outrageous R-rated humor over toning their material down for PG-13.[1](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/celebrity/jason_friedberg) One departure came with *Best Night Ever* (2013), a found-footage comedy about a Las Vegas bachelorette party that was not a spoof.[3](https://grantland.com/features/surely-they-cant-be-serious/)
## Reception and box office
The duo's commercial record and critical record point in opposite directions. Their films through 2013 grossed more than half a billion dollars worldwide, and *Epic Movie* and *Meet the Spartans* each debuted at number one at the United States box office while earning more than double their budgets.[3](https://grantland.com/features/surely-they-cant-be-serious/) • [8](https://wiki.chadnet.org/files/soiled-sinema.pdf) Critics, by contrast, panned nearly everything they made. On Rotten Tomatoes, *Scary Movie* sits at 52%, but their directorial efforts range from 7% (*Date Movie*) down to 1% (*Disaster Movie*) and 0% (*The Starving Games*, *Best Night Ever*), and their films received numerous Razzie nominations, given for the year's worst filmmaking.[1](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/celebrity/jason_friedberg)
The backlash extended past ordinary bad reviews. Grantland documented anti-Friedberg and Seltzer PSAs, petitions calling for the end of their careers, and hostile forum threads, a level of vitriol the piece attributed to the sense that their films were cynically constructed rather than merely unfunny.[3](https://grantland.com/features/surely-they-cant-be-serious/) Academic and critical writing on the pair has focused on their method: an analysis in *Ancient Worlds in Film and Television* describes their favored use of wordplay and their embrace of a "trashy" American parody tradition employing jokes in bad taste, citing a *Meet the Spartans* scene that transplants a torture sequence from the [James Bond](https://www.edgepedia.org/james-bond) film *Casino Royale* onto the Spartan king Leonidas.[9](https://brill.com/edcollbook-oa/book/edcoll/9789004241923/9789004241923_webready_content_text.pdf) A 2025 Guardian retrospective argued that their films reduced spoofing to playground imitation, referencing other movies and cultural figures without craft beyond the reference itself.[10](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/jul/31/the-return-of-the-spoof)
## Later years
After *Superfast!* (2015), the duo's output slowed and their later releases received limited theatrical distribution. They announced projects that did not reach theaters, including a parody of *Taken* titled *Who the F#@K Took My Daughter?* in May 2014 and, in 2017, a reported *Star Wars* spoof titled *Star Worlds Episode XXXIVE=MC2: The Force Awakens the Last Jedi Who Went Rogue*.[11](https://findatwiki.com/Jason_Friedberg_and_Aaron_Seltzer) The duo rarely gives interviews; Grantland reported in 2014 that requests to meet them were quietly dismissed, and a later retrospective by the critic Alex Brannan could find no source where they were seriously interviewed.[3](https://grantland.com/features/surely-they-cant-be-serious/) • [12](https://cinefilesreviews.com/2022/12/25/the-friedberg-seltzer-massacre-best-night-ever-2013-and-superfast-2015/)
Their place in parody film history is contested in the same way their careers were. Commentators credit *Scary Movie* with re-establishing parody as a viable commercial vehicle, and blame the Friedberg-Seltzer formula for sullying the spoof genre's reputation afterward; the pair's own commercial success, sustained across a decade of releases, coexisted with near-uniform critical rejection.[4](https://cinefilesreviews.com/2022/08/20/the-friedberg-seltzer-massacre-how-two-men-single-handedly-destroyed-the-parody-genre/)
## References
1. [Jason Friedberg Movies List, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/celebrity/jason_friedberg)
2. [Aaron Seltzer Biography, Fandango](https://www.fandango.com/people/aaron-seltzer-611619/biography)
3. [Matt Patches (January 31, 2014). "Surely They Can't Be Serious?", Grantland](https://grantland.com/features/surely-they-cant-be-serious/)
4. [Alex Brannan (August 20, 2022). "The Friedberg-Seltzer Massacre: How Two Men Single-Handedly Destroyed the Parody Genre", CineFiles Movie Reviews](https://cinefilesreviews.com/2022/08/20/the-friedberg-seltzer-massacre-how-two-men-single-handedly-destroyed-the-parody-genre/)
5. [The Barbados Advocate (February 17, 2017)](https://ufdcimages.uflib.ufl.edu/UF/00/09/89/64/04300/02-17-2017.pdf)
6. [Alex Brannan (August 22, 2022). "The Friedberg-Seltzer Massacre: Date Movie (2006)", CineFiles Movie Reviews](https://cinefilesreviews.com/2022/08/)
7. ["From blazing to blazes: the decline of the spoof", The Irish Times](https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/film/from-blazing-to-blazes-the-decline-of-the-spoof-1.681109)
8. ["Postmodern Techniques in the Friedberg and Seltzer Films", Soiled Sinema](https://wiki.chadnet.org/files/soiled-sinema.pdf)
9. [Ancient Worlds in Film and Television, Brill](https://brill.com/edcollbook-oa/book/edcoll/9789004241923/9789004241923_webready_content_text.pdf)
10. ["The return of the spoof: can comedy's silliest subgenre make a comeback?", The Guardian (July 31, 2025)](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/jul/31/the-return-of-the-spoof)
11. [Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, Find at WIKI](https://findatwiki.com/Jason_Friedberg_and_Aaron_Seltzer)
12. [Alex Brannan (December 25, 2022). "The Friedberg-Seltzer Massacre: Best Night Ever (2013) and Superfast! (2015)", CineFiles Movie Reviews](https://cinefilesreviews.com/2022/12/25/the-friedberg-seltzer-massacre-best-night-ever-2013-and-superfast-2015/)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Film people and crafts › Directors, producers, and screenwriters › Genre and specialist film directors*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 12, 2026; Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license