Over the weekend I had the rare privilege of speaking with two of the funniest men in Hollywood, Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon. The two have managed to maintain the rarest of comedy careers: they have had tremendous success in writing big studio films (Night At The Museum) while still working with their specific brand of off-beat humor (Reno 911!).

During our extended discussion, we talked about their recent FX pilot Alabama, their massive slate of upcoming films and of course their new screenwriting book Writing Movies For Fun And Profit. We got to talk a lot about many films that haven’t been announced yet so you’re not gonna want to miss this. Continue reading for our full discussion.

If you’re a comedy geek, the names Thomas Lennon and Ben Garant are almost certainly familiar to you.  These are two of the founding members of MTV’s The State, two of the biggest cast members on Comedy Central’s Reno 911, and the guys who wrote a slew of high-grossing (if not critically-adored) comedies like Herbie: Fully Loaded and the Night at The Museum movies.  The guys have had a lot of success in Hollywood over the years, so it makes perfect sense that they might have a few interesting things to say about their experience– not to mention some advice for aspiring screenwriters.  As such, the two have written a book– Writing Movies For Fun and Profit:  How We Made a Billion Dollars at The Box Office and You Can, Too!– and today they sat down with Collider to talk about it.  Read on for the interview, after the jump.