Scott Moore writes and directs comedies, always with Jon Lucas, built on a one-line premise and a cast who can riff. The instinct is sound; in the films we have seen, the writing leaves too much of the work to the performers.
Fi1m perspective
A Scott Moore comedy begins with a plan about to go wrong and a group who have not noticed. Four friends wake up after a bachelor party with no memory of the night before. Four women book a spa break and behave badly. Moore writes, and lately directs, with Jon Lucas, on one principle across ten films: a premise that fits in a sentence, a cast who can improvise, and scenes allowed to grow beyond the page.
They started in the mid-2000s with credits such as Four Christmases (2008), and broke through in 2009 by co-writing The Hangover. They moved behind the camera with 21 & Over (2013), then Bad Moms (2016) and its 2017 sequel, then Jexi (2019) and Spa Weekend (2026). The subjects shift from stag nights to school runs to self-care; the shape does not: an ensemble, a licence to misbehave, and a location that will not survive the weekend.
The first Hangover script is why they still get asked. When Todd Phillips remade it as The Hangover Part II (2011), Lucas and Moore were credited for the characters and nothing more, and the difference showed: the new script knew what its men were and had them do the same thing again, where the original had let the performers wander off the page. That looseness is what they are good at. Moore has said so himself: "We love working with actresses or actors who can riff, who have comedic timing, who can generate comedy, and who can ad lib. That's often where you get the best stuff." Fair enough, provided the page gives the cast something to push against.
Spa Weekend shows what happens when it does not. Leslie Mann, Michelle Buteau, Anna Faris and Isla Fisher are the cast Moore says he wants, and the film hands them wellness jokes anyone could predict and comic types that stay familiar after the chaos begins. We laughed a handful of times, mostly at things the performers seemed to have found themselves, and we ended mildly cross on the cast's behalf, because four people this quick should not be doing the writers' work. The fault is not Danny Ruhlmann's photography, Michelle McGahey's sets or Philip White's score. It is on the page, in characters drawn too broadly to sharpen and in a script that never asks why anyone would want what the spa is selling.
We have not seen a Moore and Lucas film we would send you to, and have not reviewed the two their admirers name first, The Hangover and Bad Moms. Casting people who can generate comedy is a good idea; it is not a script. The next film will have a likeable ensemble and a premise you can explain in one breath. Whether the writers have been harder on themselves before letting that ensemble loose is the thing to watch.
Biography
Scott Moore is an American screenwriter and film director. He has collaborated with writing and directing partner Jon Lucas for over two decades.
Moore was born and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii, and is an alumnus of Punahou School and the University of Colorado Boulder. With Lucas, he wrote The Hangover (2009), The Hangover Part II (2011), The Hangover Part III (2013), The Change-Up (2011), Ghosts of Girlfriends Past (2009), 21 & Over (2013) and Jexi (2019). They also wrote and directed Bad Moms (2016), A Bad Moms Christmas (2017) and Spa Weekend (2026).
The pair created the ABC series Mixology (2014). Moore and Lucas received Writers Guild of America and BAFTA nominations for Best Original Screenplay for The Hangover.
