Time travel. A pilot stealing a jet from the future and crash landing in the wrong year (present day) and teaming up with their younger self to thwart the villain and save the world. Sound like the kernel of fun family movie? One called The Adam Project? 

We spoke to screenwriter Jonathan Tropper (See, Warrior), one quarter of the writing team behind Adam.

The original idea was written as a spec script by T.S. Nowlin, Jennifer Flackett and Mark Levin almost a decade prior. Tropper was offered the script by Paramount and director David Yates (Harry Potter) who wanted to take the film in another direction. Jonathan sensed the underlying “Amblin-esque” tone and intention in the draft which excited him. This is where the idea of reuniting with a deceased father was introduced into the reimagining of the Jonathan’s vision. The father was not a character in the original draft.

Big Adam (Ryan Reynolds), aged forty-four, connects with Young Adam (Walker Scobell), aged twelve, together take a time travel mission to meet Louis Reed (Mark Ruffalo). “I wanted to write a movie about a boy and a man searching for and understanding of their lost father.” Tropper explored the psychological damage done to each of these versions of Adam, “when there hasn’t been that proper expression of and closure to that grief.”

Jonathan Tropper

This was the rich emotional landscape that Jonathan Tropper wanted to explore while keeping most of the original elements intact. This new direction informed his rewriting of The Adam Project 1.0 to create Louis Reed as the father of time travel to bridge both story elements. “I also wanted to explore the need to find Louis to undo all the wrongs that were done with time travel, and at the same time, achieve that peace and closure of revisiting your dead father.”

In order to exacerbate the conflict, Young and Big Adam initially don’t particularly like each other. “I examined the notion that the same person can be two very different people at different stages of their lives.”

“From a tonal perspective, I was trying to go back to the Amblin-esque movies in the 80s and 90s I saw in theaters as a kid – E.T. such as Back To The Future, The Goonies, The Last Starfighter, and Flight Of The Navigator, ” reminisced Tropper. “They are wondrous adventures with large production value that were pure escapist fun.”

On a thematic level, The Adam Project explored the different facets of grief and how it’s perceived and processed at a different ages. “The film mines the fantasy of seeing your deceived loves again to work that out.”

Three Development Phases

During the eight year latency period from the initial screenplay to the shooting draft, Jonathan Tropper broke down the development process into three distinct periods. The first was when he wrote a draft starring Tom Cruise as Big Adam with David Yates directing. “It was geared more toward a Tom Cruise vehicle, it was heavier on the action, it was darker in tone, and it was grounded in a grittier, more futuristic reality,” added Tropper.

After Cruise and Yates eventually left the project, Jonathan’s attempts to court Skydance Studios onto the project were resisted by the belief that family films weren’t currently doing well. They were replaced by Marvel films. Then, Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle was released with great success in 2017 and the tide turned.

Johnathan Tropper used this traction to convince Paramount to make The Adam Project into more of a four-quadrant family adventure. Even after Paramount circulated these later drafts to big name actors, the film didn’t gain sufficient interest. But Jonathan persisted. After realizing Skydance were financing 6 Underground starring Ryan Reynolds, he found a new way to get his film off the ground. Tropper put fingers to keyboard and wrote a “Reynolds” draft of Adam and offered it to Skydance. He took the opportunity to flesh out some of the ideas (Reynolds lost his father at a young age) to increase the emotionality of the film. “Ryan Reynolds and Shawn Levy read it, bonded over it, and decided it was their next movie.”

Father Figure

Louis Reed, the father of Adam, and also the father of time travel, was carefully constructed to “generate conflicting memories between twelve-year old Adam and forty-four-year old Adam,” said Tropper. Louis was human and therefore prone to mistakes like all of us. “We needed a father who wasn’t a great guy and a great father, making Big Adam wrong… or a neglectful, thoughtless jerk making Young Adam wrong in their memory of him.”

In reality, Louis was often more interested in his work at the expense of his family. But when he was emotionally present, he was a loving and caring father.

Louis Reed (Mark Ruffalo) & Walker Scobell (Young Adam). Photo by Diane Gregory/ Netflix)

Young Adam was aggrieved and angry that his father died, while Big Adam built up his anger over time to resent Louis. Although Louis was often distracted by his work he loved his son. Louis was mortified when confronted with the notion that his son felt neglected and worked to remedy the situation. “Louis was deeply upset by that.”

Both Adams also learn of each other. “It’s much easier to see what Young Adam teaches Big Adam. He helps him remember the love he felt for his father, which has since been consumed by anger over thirty years.” This is demonstrated in the scene where they reunite with their father and Young Adam hugs Louis. “By osmosis, Big Adam accepts that these are also his feelings.”

Young Adam was resigned to being a wimpy kid who complained a lot prior to meeting his older self. Seeing that what he became as an adult, gave him hope that the challenges he was going through – with his grief, his asthma and single mother, would settl downe. “Big Adam gave Young Adam the confidence and company to deal with his grief and realize he was going to be fine.”

A pivotal moment in the film occurs when Young Adam makes Big Adam understand why he’s so angry. “It’s the moment when they both truly understand each other and themselves a little bit better.”

Although much of The Adam Project focused on the father-son relationship, Adam’s relationship with his mother, Ellie (Jennifer Garner) was also impactful on Adam’s life. Ellie was dealing with grief while simultaneously raising her son. “Ellie was hurting from the loss of her husband, but hurting more that her son lost his father. She never gave herself the time or the space to grieve herself.” In avoiding her own grief, she tolerated Adam’s acting out evidenced by constant outbursts and sarcasm. Adam eventually realized this and appreciated his mother’s efforts even more. “Sons always come back for their mothers,” says Ryan Reynolds.

Young Adam (Walker Scobell) & Ellie Reed (Jennifer Garner). Photo by Diane Gregory/ Netflix

Jonathan Tropper doesn’t neatly end his story on an entirely happy note. “There is never a complete closure to Adam’s loss. There’s always a hole in your life. The building is never the same again because a parent forms such a vital part of your emotional core.”  A dead loved one can’t be resurrected, but their memory can live on. The film explores the concept that if there is so much residual anger due to the grief never being resolved at the time, revisiting that person one last time to say what needs to be said, provides some level of comfort and closes a dangling emotional loop.

Even though Big Adam initially wanted to go back in time to rescue his wife (Laura Soldaña) and destroy time travel, he didn’t realize how much he needed to hear Louis tell him that he loved him.

Jonathan Tropper can reduce much of his writing into a single word – family. “Family dynamics, family dysfunction, and the way hidden and spoken resentments can imprison and ultimately free us. The people you resent the most can probably teach you the most.”

Fo conclude, Tropper defines a perfect story as one that “speaks to your soul and leaves you with a visceral emotional reaction. It’s the thing that penetrates the intellectual aspects of storytelling to give you that emotional response.“