EuroTrip (2004)

Post-graduation trips have become something of a tradition, and Europe has been the destination of choice for many teenagers looking for that last "hurrah" before settling into college or a career.
"It’s an American rite of passage," writer/director Jeff Schaffer attests.

"It’s very universal," writer/producer David Mandel adds, "Kids graduate from high school or college and go to Europe, but it’s the backpacking, stay in youth hostels kind of European tour. There have been a lot of teen comedies, but they are always in the States, so the idea of this trip—that we didn’t necessarily get to do, but people with normal lives actually do—was our starting point."

Writer/producer Alec Berg offers, "We had several different ideas that we felt were funny situations for kids traveling through Europe before we came up with the premise to bridge them all together."

The premise the three longtime writing partners decided on centers on two trans-Atlantic cyber pen pals whose language barrier leads to a misunderstanding. American teenager Scotty, after years of exchanging emails with his German pen pal Mieke, is still under the mistaken notion that Mieke is a guy. The revelation that Mieke is a girl—coming on the heels of Scotty’s being dumped by his girlfriend—sends him across the Atlantic to find and finally meet Mieke.

The trio’s screenplay found its way to The Montecito Picture Company, the producers of another teen comedy trek, "Road Trip." Montecito principals and executive producers Ivan Reitman and Tom Pollock both loved the idea of taking a group of teens on another trip, this time overseas.

The filmmakers then turned to casting their young tourists. Relative newcomer Scott Mechlowicz was cast as Scotty, whose ineptitude with German sets the story in motion. Schaffer jokes that the fact that the actor and character share the same first name "…is the real reason Scott was hired.

In actuality, Mechlowicz was hired because, after wading through hundreds of readings and audition tapes, the actor was the first to make the filmmakers sit up and take notice. "He was fantastic. We were so excited to finally find him," Schaffer recalls.

Schaffer explains that the role presented a casting challenge, saying, "Scotty is the first among equals, the center of the wheel that his friends revolve around. He needed to be funny and charming, but not a stick in the mud."

Berg offers, "You have to believe that he’s a guy who’s missing something in his life to the point that he decides to go all the way to Europe to find it."

Adding to his character’s description, Mechlowicz says, ""He also has to be a bit crazy. He does, after all, leave the country to find a girl he’s never met—never even spoken to once in his life. But he still goes. He’s a good kid, with a good heart. And like all good kids with good hearts, he always seems to get knocked down by the bad now and then. He's just very lucky to have such a good group of friends to prop him back up."

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