The story idea concerning the magic pie and plumber theory analogies to explain writer residuals was based on message board discussions of these same theories on Craig Mazin's (Scary Movie 4) Artful Writer website, during the 2007 writer's strike. Craig posed a "Magic Cake" analogy to explain proposed DVD residuals. A more popular analogy was to compare writers with plumbers and question why writers should receive residuals every time their film is shown while plumbers don't get anything when their customers flush toilets.