The two writers of Epic Movie, Date Movie and Scary Movie 3, surveyed the pop cultural landscape that they had laid waste to with bomb after bomb of cheap gags and lazy references: The ground was scorched, the soil singed–no comedy would grow here. In the distance, scavengers picked at the blanched bones of Sanjaya jokes, while Britney Spears references, one of the only creatures hardy enough to survive in such a climate, burrowed underneath the flat rocks to die. Somewhere, the plaintive, hollow wail of Carmen Electra's career could be heard.
One of the writers turned to the other, his face a sallow mask, too exhausted to even produce tears. "I don't know," he said, "What if Spiderman was a woman or something?"