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How to Write Groundhog Day
"Groundhog Day" is a hugely entertaining movie, widely considered a comedy classic and many peoples' favorite film of all time. Did screenwriter Danny Rubin know what he was doing when he wrote it? That it would star Bill Murray and become a hit? That it would become a touchstone for major religions? That psychologists would come to prescribe the movie to their patients?
Follow this unique screenplay's exciting journey through agents, directors, studios, stars and the writer's own confused brain to emerge as one of the most delightful and profoundly affecting comedies of all time. For movie lovers and screenwriters alike, "How To Write Groundhog Day" includes the original screenplay, notes, scene sketches, and a personal tour of the Hollywood writing process from this popular screenwriting teacher.
Follow this unique screenplay's exciting journey through agents, directors, studios, stars and the writer's own confused brain to emerge as one of the most delightful and profoundly affecting comedies of all time. For movie lovers and screenwriters alike, "How To Write Groundhog Day" includes the original screenplay, notes, scene sketches, and a personal tour of the Hollywood writing process from this popular screenwriting teacher.
- GenresNonfictionWritingFilm
287 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 27, 2012
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280 people want to read
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February 20, 2025
How are you doing today? How is your February going? Does your February 2nd seem likely to lead on to February 3rd and then February 4th, and so on and so forth – from one calendar day to the next, in the usual way? That’s good to hear. Then you’re not stuck in the time loop that ensnares Pittsburgh meteorologist Phil Connors in director Harold Ramis’s Groundhog Day (1993) – and therefore, you might be interested in reading screenwriter Danny Rubin’s How to Write Groundhog Day, a fun account of how a writer new to Hollywood ended up crafting the screenplay for a modest little film that, quite unexpectedly, changed global popular culture. Only after its release, after all, did we start using terms like “a Groundhog Day moment” to describe a cycle of unproductive repetition.
Rubin recounts coming to Hollywood with a number of story scenarios, seeking industry connections, and trying to come up, after a couple of false starts and setbacks, with a viable idea for a film script. He found himself building from an early screenplay idea titled Time Machine, about a man who is stuck reliving the same day over and over again.
After talking about his writing process, Rubin shares the entire original screenplay for Groundhog Day. There is no opening scene at a TV station in Pittsburgh; the screenplay begins in medias res, with Phil Connors explaining his predicament in voice-over: “Let me tell you right off – I have a secret. If I could just tell you right out, I would. But, believe me, you wouldn’t understand. And by tomorrow, you wouldn’t remember my secret. You wouldn’t even remember my name” (p. 50).
The Phil Connors of the screenplay is young and hungry; as written by Rubin, the role seems as if it would be better-suited for a young actor of the time, like Robert Downey Jr. It is fortunate, in that regard, that Bill Murray eventually got the part. Murray was 42 years old at the time when Groundhog Day was filmed, and therefore there is a certain pathos to the scene early in the film when he smugly tells his Pittsburgh co-anchor that a national network is interested in him. In fact, however, the hypercompetitive, dog-eat-dog nature of television news means that a small-market weatherman in his forties is likely to stay in his small-market job. And suddenly, a plausible reason emerges for Phil Connors’s bitter negativity, his resentment at being sent to Punxsutawney for a fourth straight year of covering the Groundhog Day festivities. Such subtle considerations – things of which the viewer might not even be consciously aware – can make an important contribution to whether a film works or not.
Part of the fun of reading the screenplay for a favorite film involves following roads not taken by the filmmakers – experiencing aspects of the screenplay that were changed or discarded as the screenplay moved into production. Fans of the film will recall, for instance, that an unexpected blizzard strands Phil, his producer Rita, and their cameraman Larry in Punxsutawney after their coverage of the Groundhog Day festivities, setting the stage for Phil’s multiple repetitions of Groundhog Day. Yet in Rubin’s screenplay, Phil’s desperation eventually leads him to take a snowmobile from Punxsy to Altoona (56 miles!), resulting in the following exchange between Phil and a ticket agent at the Altoona airport:
PHIL: Hi. Where do you fly between now and, say, one A.M.?
AGENT: We have flights to Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and Washington, D.C.
PHIL: Great! Send me to Pittsburgh, one-way.
AGENT: Snowed in.
PHIL: How about Cleveland?
AGENT: Snowed in.
PHIL: Is Washington snowed in?
AGENT: No, sir.
PHIL: Great! Washington, one-way.
AGENT: Okay. Do you have a reservation? (p. 100)
Phil “stares, crestfallen” (p. 100), realizing that his latest escape plan has failed. Personally, I think this scene would have filmed well.
Eventually, after descending into a state of deshabille and despair, Phil finds himself interacting with, and actually listening to, fellow outcasts who are going through their own cycles of repetition – a homeless old man in front of the bank, a lady at the senior-care home who says she’s 1016 years old, a teenager who skips school every day to play pick-up basketball. The experience of truly listening and relating changes him. “All of my yesterdays,” he says, “had been about me. Tomorrow was going to be different. I was ready to leave myself and join the human race” (p. 159).
And with that, Phil is off to his new life helping others – “I became the invisible hand of Punxsutawney, quietly removing pain wherever I could find it” (p. 162) – in scenes that are similar to, and in some ways different from, what one sees in the final film. He even, at one point, helps a patient in an emergency situation at the Punxsutawney hospital by serving as an anesthesiologist! That scene, of course, didn’t make it into the final film. Rubin thought the long cycle of repetitions meant that “It made perfect sense…that Phil could by now be a trained anesthesiologist”, but director Ramis disagreed: “I do remember having a spirited discussion with Harold over whether Phil could actually practice medicine. He didn’t think so” (p. 252).
And the relationship between Rita and the emotionally-regenerated Phil moves forward, too – though the screenplay ends on much more of a Twilight Zone-style, surprise-ending note than the straightforward, happy resolution to Ramis’s film.
After the screenplay, Rubin takes the reader through a motion picture’s development process – providing, in the process, a good sense of the collaborative nature of filmmaking. Rubin writes that “I would never label this script or anything I write as ‘dark,’ but there is an edge I’m not afraid to cross, and that edge allows characters to be a little bit more mean-spirited and selfish than, say, your average situation comedy TV character” (p. 202). He adds that Harold Ramis’s outlook on characterization tends to be different – “in general, his characters show more sweetness than mine”. Rubin concludes that “Luckily, it was clear to both of us that Phil’s nasty side was necessary for achieving the greatest impact”, and that “the casting of Bill Murray as a totally compelling nasty guy” (p. 203) made a vital contribution to the film’s success. Three talented people – screenwriter Rubin, director Ramis, and actor Murray – worked together productively, in a spirit of give-and-take – something that seems to have made an important contribution to the critical and commercial success of Groundhog Day.
I liked Rubin’s reflection, toward the book’s conclusion, about the infinite range of possibilities facing each of us on any given day, and his suggestion that “we shape our own experience of the world far more than we often realize” (p. 272). When he talks about leaving Hollywood for Santa Fe, or about the joy he derives from teaching at Harvard and other universities, I got the sense that he might have wanted to make a Phil Connors-style break from his own unproductive routine – perhaps, for instance, the Writers’ Guild of America (WGA) scene of scrounging for rewrite jobs or fighting over screenwriting credits. (Ask a screenwriter, if you get the chance sometime, about the difference between an ampersand [“&”] and the word “and” between the names of two screenwriters in the credits for a film. You may be surprised at what you hear.)
And if you read the book on a tablet, as I did, then the conclusion of the book provides a fun opportunity for some Groundhog Day-style repetition. Talk about mixing form and content!
How to Read Groundhog Day may be of particular interest to aspiring screenwriters, students of popular culture, and current or former residents of Central Pennsylvania (I lived there for seven years). If you read it, I think you will find it to be a fast and pleasant reading experience. Whether you repeat-read it, and how many times you might repeat-read it, will of course be up to you…
Rubin recounts coming to Hollywood with a number of story scenarios, seeking industry connections, and trying to come up, after a couple of false starts and setbacks, with a viable idea for a film script. He found himself building from an early screenplay idea titled Time Machine, about a man who is stuck reliving the same day over and over again.
After talking about his writing process, Rubin shares the entire original screenplay for Groundhog Day. There is no opening scene at a TV station in Pittsburgh; the screenplay begins in medias res, with Phil Connors explaining his predicament in voice-over: “Let me tell you right off – I have a secret. If I could just tell you right out, I would. But, believe me, you wouldn’t understand. And by tomorrow, you wouldn’t remember my secret. You wouldn’t even remember my name” (p. 50).
The Phil Connors of the screenplay is young and hungry; as written by Rubin, the role seems as if it would be better-suited for a young actor of the time, like Robert Downey Jr. It is fortunate, in that regard, that Bill Murray eventually got the part. Murray was 42 years old at the time when Groundhog Day was filmed, and therefore there is a certain pathos to the scene early in the film when he smugly tells his Pittsburgh co-anchor that a national network is interested in him. In fact, however, the hypercompetitive, dog-eat-dog nature of television news means that a small-market weatherman in his forties is likely to stay in his small-market job. And suddenly, a plausible reason emerges for Phil Connors’s bitter negativity, his resentment at being sent to Punxsutawney for a fourth straight year of covering the Groundhog Day festivities. Such subtle considerations – things of which the viewer might not even be consciously aware – can make an important contribution to whether a film works or not.
Part of the fun of reading the screenplay for a favorite film involves following roads not taken by the filmmakers – experiencing aspects of the screenplay that were changed or discarded as the screenplay moved into production. Fans of the film will recall, for instance, that an unexpected blizzard strands Phil, his producer Rita, and their cameraman Larry in Punxsutawney after their coverage of the Groundhog Day festivities, setting the stage for Phil’s multiple repetitions of Groundhog Day. Yet in Rubin’s screenplay, Phil’s desperation eventually leads him to take a snowmobile from Punxsy to Altoona (56 miles!), resulting in the following exchange between Phil and a ticket agent at the Altoona airport:
PHIL: Hi. Where do you fly between now and, say, one A.M.?
AGENT: We have flights to Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and Washington, D.C.
PHIL: Great! Send me to Pittsburgh, one-way.
AGENT: Snowed in.
PHIL: How about Cleveland?
AGENT: Snowed in.
PHIL: Is Washington snowed in?
AGENT: No, sir.
PHIL: Great! Washington, one-way.
AGENT: Okay. Do you have a reservation? (p. 100)
Phil “stares, crestfallen” (p. 100), realizing that his latest escape plan has failed. Personally, I think this scene would have filmed well.
Eventually, after descending into a state of deshabille and despair, Phil finds himself interacting with, and actually listening to, fellow outcasts who are going through their own cycles of repetition – a homeless old man in front of the bank, a lady at the senior-care home who says she’s 1016 years old, a teenager who skips school every day to play pick-up basketball. The experience of truly listening and relating changes him. “All of my yesterdays,” he says, “had been about me. Tomorrow was going to be different. I was ready to leave myself and join the human race” (p. 159).
And with that, Phil is off to his new life helping others – “I became the invisible hand of Punxsutawney, quietly removing pain wherever I could find it” (p. 162) – in scenes that are similar to, and in some ways different from, what one sees in the final film. He even, at one point, helps a patient in an emergency situation at the Punxsutawney hospital by serving as an anesthesiologist! That scene, of course, didn’t make it into the final film. Rubin thought the long cycle of repetitions meant that “It made perfect sense…that Phil could by now be a trained anesthesiologist”, but director Ramis disagreed: “I do remember having a spirited discussion with Harold over whether Phil could actually practice medicine. He didn’t think so” (p. 252).
And the relationship between Rita and the emotionally-regenerated Phil moves forward, too – though the screenplay ends on much more of a Twilight Zone-style, surprise-ending note than the straightforward, happy resolution to Ramis’s film.
After the screenplay, Rubin takes the reader through a motion picture’s development process – providing, in the process, a good sense of the collaborative nature of filmmaking. Rubin writes that “I would never label this script or anything I write as ‘dark,’ but there is an edge I’m not afraid to cross, and that edge allows characters to be a little bit more mean-spirited and selfish than, say, your average situation comedy TV character” (p. 202). He adds that Harold Ramis’s outlook on characterization tends to be different – “in general, his characters show more sweetness than mine”. Rubin concludes that “Luckily, it was clear to both of us that Phil’s nasty side was necessary for achieving the greatest impact”, and that “the casting of Bill Murray as a totally compelling nasty guy” (p. 203) made a vital contribution to the film’s success. Three talented people – screenwriter Rubin, director Ramis, and actor Murray – worked together productively, in a spirit of give-and-take – something that seems to have made an important contribution to the critical and commercial success of Groundhog Day.
I liked Rubin’s reflection, toward the book’s conclusion, about the infinite range of possibilities facing each of us on any given day, and his suggestion that “we shape our own experience of the world far more than we often realize” (p. 272). When he talks about leaving Hollywood for Santa Fe, or about the joy he derives from teaching at Harvard and other universities, I got the sense that he might have wanted to make a Phil Connors-style break from his own unproductive routine – perhaps, for instance, the Writers’ Guild of America (WGA) scene of scrounging for rewrite jobs or fighting over screenwriting credits. (Ask a screenwriter, if you get the chance sometime, about the difference between an ampersand [“&”] and the word “and” between the names of two screenwriters in the credits for a film. You may be surprised at what you hear.)
And if you read the book on a tablet, as I did, then the conclusion of the book provides a fun opportunity for some Groundhog Day-style repetition. Talk about mixing form and content!
How to Read Groundhog Day may be of particular interest to aspiring screenwriters, students of popular culture, and current or former residents of Central Pennsylvania (I lived there for seven years). If you read it, I think you will find it to be a fast and pleasant reading experience. Whether you repeat-read it, and how many times you might repeat-read it, will of course be up to you…
August 10, 2022
Gift Card | Thank goodness for Harold Ramis | This is basically the original draft that Rubin wrote, with notes on the process, the changes made, and why. If the original draft had been filmed as written, it would have been straight to video and forgotten, and strangely Rubin gives the impression of still being enamoured of his choices that I think were the worst. He presents the Ramis changes as acceptable in the long run, but having changed his vision into something more commercial. Whereas I think that having it start in the middle with a voiceover narration from Phil would have been awful. It makes for a less engaging read, because you've been dropped in and have to rely on a character you don't know, who has a self-important, condescending, aggrandizing voice, to carry you along on his schedule. That perspective was dull and kept me from connecting with Phil. To specifically tick off the days makes it no more than an endurance run. To have sleeping with Rita fix everything is shallow and reduces her from a person to a sexual solution. She's barely drawn as it is, doesn't appear to be a particularly good person, so Phil falls for her more based on access than on merit. All the most valuable moments of the movie are missing from the original draft. An interesting read, though I think you have to be a relatively big fan of the movie to really find value. Having seen the movie many times before the two years that I did all day marathons in the theater (over and over and over and), I know the differences instantly.
February 10, 2013
El 2 de febrero pasado se cumplieron 20 años del gran éxito "The Groundhog Day", estrenada en España como "Atrapado en el tiempo". Kottke y un par de amigos decidieron ver la peli y hacer comentarios en directo, y mencionaron durante la sesión varios libros sobre la película. Este es el primero de los tres que me he comprado :) Está escrito por el guionista de la película, incluye el guión original (que sorprendentemente es un thriller existencialista cifi en lugar de una comedia romántica) y habla largo y tendido sobre el proceso general que sufre un guión desde que se escribe (spec script) hasta que se rueda (shooting script). Muy entretenido, muy interesante y muy fácil de leer. Me ha encantado.
January 20, 2014
Enjoyed.
August 9, 2022
So many great nuggets in this book for writers in general, and also fun tidbits about how Groundhog Day the movie evolved, and how the script changed to something so different from the start. The book helped me understand why I love the movie so much and what philosophical principals are propelling the story forward. It also illustrated just how important the coordination between writers, actors, directors, producers, etc. is before, during and after the story becomes a final movie. The only reason I am not giving this 5 stars is because the whole original script is included in the book, plus notes, which is probably great for screen writer wannabes to see, but as a novel writer I was more interested in the notes and other valuable tidbits that came after the original script.
August 21, 2023
Groundhog Day is one of the few movies I can watch once a year or so without getting tired of it, so I enjoyed reading about the process of its creation. I appreciated Rubin's honesty and sense of humor about the writing process, and it was interesting to read his original script with his notes on his thought processes and the reasons for some of the changes. Recommended for fans of the move or for people interested in screenwriting.
October 19, 2023
This had been in my Amazon wishlist for over 10 years. For some reason, last week, I decided to finally buy it because hey, I love Groundhog Day like everybody else. Just what went into such an original idea and screenplay? Danny Rubin takes us through his original script that sold offering interesting asides throughout, and it’s clear that though many great scenes were already there, the development process made it a classic. Recommended for film fans!
March 10, 2020
Every successful screenwriter should write a book about their process with each film. What a fun and fulfilling read! From ideation to completion with wit and care. Only one thing left to do; reread it.
July 16, 2023
“A screenplay is rarely shot exactly in its original form. Unlike a stage play, which is considered sacrosanct by actors and directors and generally altered only by the playwright him or herself, a screenplay is malleable and subject to everyone’s input. It’s like a Wiki-play. The joke in Hollywood about screenplays is, ‘I love it! Who can we get to rewrite it?’” (p. 161)
4.5 out of 5. How to Write Groundhog Day is absolutely fascinating. Original screenwriter Danny Rubin goes into detail about the whole process of creating the great movie Groundhog Day (1993), from how he came up with the idea, to his original script, through the rewrites, and into the final product. Filmmaking is complex. Rubin ruefully states, "every movie is basically produced by a committee, and it’s a miracle that anything good ever gets made" (p. 258). And yes, the process of constantly rewriting tends to suck away everything good about the original screenplay. It is the biggest reason why so many movies and TV are boring nowadays. Groundhog Day is a rare exception. I would argue that director Harold Ramis's meddling and Rubin's own revisions turned a cute, clever, and whimsical little story into one of the most memorable comedies that Hollywood has ever produced. And Rubin appears to agree.
I love that Rubin never intended Groundhog Day to be more than "a thoughtful human comedy" (p. 244) but wound up instilling it with a message that hits home for countless people. The message is:
...like Phil, we need not be the victims of our own lives, and that the power to change our fate, to change our experience of a single day, rests within ourselves. No matter what cycle we are stuck inside, the power to escape is already present within us...we shape our own experience of the world far more than we often realize...The world changed because Phil changed. That means that the difference to us between a bad day and a good day may not be the day, but may be the way we approach the day. (pp. 245-246).
Title: How to Write Groundhog Day
Author: Danny Rubin
Year: 2012
Genre: Nonfiction - Memoir, filmmaking
Page count: 278 pages
Date(s) read: 7/2/23 - 7/3/23
Reading journal entry #128 in 2023
February 14, 2012
Enjoyable book on the process that led to the movie Groundhog Day. It includes the inception of the idea, transcript of the first draft, evolution of the final script and lessons learned. It's a book that inspires confidence in anyone's ability to write a script if they have the determination to sit down, write it and then rewrite it... hopefully with some skillful collaborators. The one major issue with this book is that some of the most interesting parts, the years of notes, are not formatted at a size to provide easy reading on a Kindle or Amazon Fire.
February 26, 2014
Pretty cool book by the writer of Groudhog Day. He tells his story of how he came to write the movie and his influences and how his first draft, included in the text of the book, became the finished film we saw. While I harbor little to no screenwriting ambitions myself I did enjoy this peek into how this particular film got made and what it was like to work with Harold Ramis and Bill Murray. I also re-watched the movie tonight, after reading this. So yes, if you liked this movie I'm sure you will love this book.
December 31, 2020
it's hilarious how someone can know so little about a story they wrote, how a man can write someone as complex as phil is with so much self loathing and a journey so rich in it's reversal but to pretend it's as simple as the growth of an immature character is utterly bizarre, it's mostly a screenplay that is depressing in it's mediocrity and absurd in how amazing the adapation to film ended up being
if you're not obsessed with the film this will hold no interest for you, and even then perhaps only a little
if you're not obsessed with the film this will hold no interest for you, and even then perhaps only a little
February 4, 2013
If you love the movie, you should read this book, which is essentially the annotated screenplay before Harold Ramis and Bill Murray collaborated to bring it into its final form. The collaboration was great, productive, and I don't think anything is lost. It's great to see the changes.
If you love the movie AND you've read any of William Goldman's books about the screenplay process, you MUST read this book.
It's a quick read, engaging, enjoyable, and provides plenty of food for thought.
If you love the movie AND you've read any of William Goldman's books about the screenplay process, you MUST read this book.
It's a quick read, engaging, enjoyable, and provides plenty of food for thought.
November 13, 2016
Rewarding journey into the development process of this much-loved movie, full of insight, humour and advice, penned by the writer of the original screenplay.
I read this book long after I started to analyse this film in my 3-day Advanced Development Workshops and in Screenwriting Unchained, so it was fascinating to see the difference between how one can analyse a story from the finished film and the actual development process of the screenplay, documented by the writer himself.
I read this book long after I started to analyse this film in my 3-day Advanced Development Workshops and in Screenwriting Unchained, so it was fascinating to see the difference between how one can analyse a story from the finished film and the actual development process of the screenplay, documented by the writer himself.
June 19, 2012
I love the movie, so the book was of real interest to me. I enjoyed reading about the development process, and the author provides some interesting insights into his script. It gets a bit long winded toward the end, but overall an enjoyable read for anyone interested in the creative process as it applies to the film business.
January 8, 2013
A great book about one of my favorite movies--and the creative process behind it. Rubin is generous to show the wandering road that took him from his original idea to the finished project, passing through a lot of unexpected places. Including the full first-draft, wildly different from the shooting script, the book is highly recommended both for fans of the movie and writers alike.
February 14, 2023
A fairly short read that's bulked up by including a copy of the original script for the film. There are some fun anecdotes about the development process. It doesn't quite explain what alchemy turned the words onto the page into such a timeless bit of cinema, but that's part of the magic of film-making.
November 26, 2014
A fine book about a fine script. With many insights into both the creative process, creative careers and living a creative life.
The evolution between drafts is interesting to follow and if you like the film it will make you smile and nod often.
The evolution between drafts is interesting to follow and if you like the film it will make you smile and nod often.
March 18, 2022
like reading an honest production diary
Really enjoyed the read. A bit of something for most people, film fans, writing fans, creatives, screenwriters, all sorts. Well worth the read. Would love to meet the author, just sounds like a good guy to chat with.
Really enjoyed the read. A bit of something for most people, film fans, writing fans, creatives, screenwriters, all sorts. Well worth the read. Would love to meet the author, just sounds like a good guy to chat with.
February 12, 2012
Just what it says on the tin.
April 11, 2012
funny, insightful, thoughtful, informative. I love the film, which helps.
March 30, 2013
A wonderful glimpse into the making of a comedy classic. Just as charming, engaging and funny as the end result.
August 15, 2014
Great insights into the creation of one of the best movies ever made. Also a great discussion of the "rules" and philosophy incorporated in Groundhog Day. Highly recommended if you like the movie.
February 1, 2024
It's for the ones who worship this movie!
It's for the ones who worship this movie! For me I guess. It's Groundhog Day, fellas. Every day is 2nd Feb.
It's for the ones who worship this movie! For me I guess. It's Groundhog Day, fellas. Every day is 2nd Feb.
November 4, 2012
Being able to read the original script was great.
Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews