According to The Wrap, Phil Lord and Chris Miller told Sony Pictures Animation that they had “a lot of ideas” about a possible “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs” movie, which inspired the studio to invite them to pitch on the project. “We didn’t actually have any ideas,” Miller says. “We just liked the book.” Lord joked that the executives invited the duo to come the next day, to which they replied, “How about the day after tomorrow?” With a little bit of stolen time, the two pulled an all-nighter working on their pitch, despite having never written a movie before. As history shows, their pitch was a success, and the two directed the film which spawned a sequel and TV series adaptation.
However, the two were at one point removed from the project for creative differences but later asked to return. “I remember they kept telling us the movie was greenlit,” Lord said. “We were a year in and they were like ‘Good news, they greenlit the movie, it’s going to get made.’ We’re like, ‘Great.’ And then a year later they had this big meeting where they told us, ‘Congratulations. The movie’s greenlit.'”
Sound confusing? It was for Lord and Miller, too. As it turns out, what this meant was that Sony Pictures Animation had hit a point where the film had to be released, otherwise they would be spending even more money not to release it. “We’re like, ‘Hooray, I guess? Is this where we pop the champagne or…?'” Miller said.