Josh Schwartz: My debt to some goonies and a kid left home alone

Sixteen Candles 1984

”It’s a comedy with a teenage girl at its center, but it’s also one that guys can enjoy. It was John Hughes’ first movie as a director. It’s really about family and rooted in Samantha Baker [Molly Ringwald] and her emotional journey in the same way Fun Size is about Wren’s family.”

The Goonies 1985

”It’s one of the great underdog stories: a group of outcasts who become heroes in their own adventure,” says Schwartz. ”Mama Fratelli [Anne Ramsey] helped inspire Johnny Knoxville’s bad guy [in Fun Size].” And does Schwartz’s film have an elaborate waterslide sequence like The Goonies? ”We don’t. I wish. But we do have a giant humping chicken.”

Adventures in Babysitting 1987

”The movies that influenced me the most in life are the John Hughes movies and the Amblin movies. And there is a vector between them: the early films of Chris Columbus, because he wrote The Goonies and directed Adventures in Babysitting. It was funny, exciting, and who didn’t have a crush on Elisabeth Shue?”

Home Alone 1990

”Where Hughes meets Columbus! It holds up so well and it is a perfect holiday movie for all ages. Visually, I love the way that you see the film through Macaulay Culkin’s eyes, and when we’re off on Albert’s adventure, I really wanted that perspective.”

Adventureland 2009

”It was really inspiring to me visually because it has a great sense of place and a very naturalistic look,” he says of the ’80s-set flick starring Jesse Eisenberg and Kristen Stewart. ”The adventures our kids get into can get pretty crazy, but we always wanted Fun Size to feel like it was rooted in a world as real as Adventureland.”