Starring: Michael Blieden, Stephanie Courtney, Annabelle Gurwitch, Matt Price
Director: Bob Odenkirk
Written and Edited by: Michael Blieden
Producers: DJ Paul, Naomi Odenkirk, Jeff Sussman

Looking back at this movie several years after its release, it's clear to me how transformative the process was. A quick history- I wrote the play "Phyrogiants!" in 2001, and produced it at a small theater in LA with the same cast you see here. Bob and Naomi Odenkirk saw the play and asked if I'd be interested in turning it into a feature. I said yes. Enthusiastically. Since Bob wanted to direct this movie, I made a decision early on to completely hand him the keys to the kingdom. I said "this is not my project any more, it's yours and I trust you with it."

He more than earned that trust with every decision, both major and minor. A movie is really the sum total of about 10,000 decisions made by anywhere from 30 to a thousand people. During production, the Director has the prerogative to weigh in on every single one of those decisions, and not only was Bob involved in everything, he got it right all the time. Did I sit back and watch, silently praying for him to go one way or the other on things? Of course I did. But time and time again he made it abundantly clear that he understood the material and he had a vision to execute the script.

Let me back up a scoonch. The first part of the process was writing the script, which I did by myself. I took the play, which is every scene in the restaurant, and added all the scenes that take place outside the restaurant. I got a couple rounds of notes from Bob and then we were happy with it.

One of the craziest and absolutely best decisions that Bob made was to keep the cast the same as the play. This included me, thankfully.

Look, I really could go on and on about this movie, but I'm going to stop myself after this next thought. When I wrote this movie I was very isolated. I was Melvin. But the process of making the movie helped me tranistion to a new phase of my life. I had to write about that part of my life to evolve out of it. So in that way, Melvin Goes To Dinner is responsible for almost everything else on this site.