RICHARD LINKLATER SCHOOL OF ROCK SCRIPT MOVIE

Two of his most recent features, Tape and Waking Life, are the epitome of low-budget experimentation. Richard Linklater, director of The School of Rock, first struck gold with the cult hit Slacker which became a touch stone text for the so-called Generation X. The script is by Mike White, a familiar on-screen oddball whose previous writing credits include the Sundance-feted Jennifer Aniston feature The Good Girl, and the edgy bisexual romance Chuck and Buck. What also makes this solidly mainstream hit remarkable is the impeccable indie pedigree of its creators.

RICHARD LINKLATER SCHOOL OF ROCK SCRIPT MOVIE

I'm sure that if I was a 12-year-old I would feel exactly the same way I did when I saw Slade in Flame back in 1974 - that it was the best movie I had ever seen. but we're also getting older adults.' As someone who presumably fits into the latter category, I can happily report that The School of Rock made me laugh out loud, warmed the valve-powered cockles of my ageing heart, and sent me home wondering whether the leather trousers mouldering in my closet would still fit (they don't). Paramount CEO Robert Friedman later reflected that the secret of this unexpected success lay in the fact that 'we're getting kids and parents. When the film opened last month it surprised industry pundits by beating the much-hyped Denzel Washington vehicle Out of Time to the box-office top spot. According to Ebert: 'There's not a kid alive who would be anything but delighted by this film.' So promiscuous is The School of Rock's generation-straddling appeal that influential US critic Roger Ebert dubbed it 'the first kid movie that parents will like more than their children', and attacked the PG 13 rating given to the movie (for 'some rude humour and drug references'). The School of Rock, however, has proved itself to be a genuine 'family film', playing to everyone from schoolkids, who like the idea of nerdy 11-year-olds storming a talent contest and turning their classroom into a mosh-pit, to ageing hippies who laugh through their beards at references to the keyboard solo on 'Roundabout', an archaic gem from prog-rock dinosaurs Yes. Increasingly, studios have targeted the teen market as the key audience, even for R-rated movies such as The Matrix, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Kill Bill, with Quentin Tarantino's plea for 'cool parents' to take their kids to see his blood-spattered epic demonstrating clearly where the real money lies. The film has taken nearly $80 million, a handsome return on its reported cost of only $20m, and an impressive demonstration of its ability to transcend age demographics. Next thing, the kids have studied Hendrix and AC/DC, backcombed their hair, mounted their monitors and headed off to the local Battle of the Bands contest, hellbent on 'rolling tonight, to the guitar bite'. 'Are you actually gonna teach us anything?' asks one precocious student, inspiring Dewey/Schneebly to 'raise the goblet of rock' and set the kids on the road to Marshall-stacked salvation which will 'test your head, and your mind.

The School of Rock, which opens here early next year, starts with wannabe guitar-legend Dewey Finn (the ramshackle Jack Black in a tailormade role) stage-diving into an audience whose eagerness to catch him he has seriously overestimated.ДЇired by his band and threatened with eviction by his flatmate, Finn poses as fifth-grade teacher Ned Schneebly and soon finds himself instructing the offspring of America's fee-paying elite. A lthough the Christmas box-office charts will be dominated by the epic fantasy of Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King and the star-studded romantic shambles of Love Actually, US cinemagoers have recently been flocking to a sleeper 'rock comedy' hit about a fat, out-of-work heavy-metal devotee driven by desperation to surreptitious supply teaching.

Richard linklater school of rock script