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A WIMP IS BORN

   Greg Heffley was created in January 1998 in a small 

apartment in Massachusetts. There wasn't much to him, 

really. He was just a little pencil doodle in a cheap 

sketch pad.

  This book is the story of how a little idea got turned 

into a major motion picture, and how a fictional cartoon 

character became a real boy.

A ROUGH START

It took four years to fill up the sketch pad 

and create all the scenes and characters in 

the "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" universe. 

That's what the book was called. A year 

later, an editor in New York decided to 

publish "Diary of a Wimpy Kid." And that's 

how Greg Heffley made the leap from a 

sketch pad to a printed book. A few months 

later, Zach Gordon, now working as an actor 

in television and film, read the book and 

told his mom he hoped someone would make 

it into a movie. And if they did, he told 

her, he wanted to play the part of Greg 

Heffley. 

GOING HOLLYWOOD

The studio executives and producers are the people 

responsible for getting the movie made. One of the first 

things they do is bring in writers to pitch their ideas for 

what should happen in the movie.Once the studio and 

producers hear a pitch they like, they hire the writer to 

start working on the screenplay. A screenplay describes 

everything that happens in the film, from the action to the 

dialogue. Here's how the opening scene of the "Diary of a 

Wimpy Kid" movie looks in the script-(look to the left).

THE SEARCH FOR GREG

A website was even created to help with the search. 

Thousands of kids of all shapes and sizes showed up 

at casting calls and posted their auditions online. In 

the end, Zachary Gordon got the part. Zach nailed his 

audition and left no doubt that he could bring the 

character of Greg Heffley to life. And who knows? 

Maybe this drawing, which Zach sent to the producers 

a few days before his eleventh birthday, helped him 

get the job-(look to the left)

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