The hilariously awful first drafts of your favorite movies, shows, and books [17 pics]

Even geniuses start their best works with occasionally lame prose, so almost every great book, movie, or television series you’ve ever enjoyed actually began as embarrassing brainstorms. Thank goodness for rewriting and editors.

But why shouldn’t these first drafts come to light?

Writer and comedian Paul Laudiero was in his last semester at George Mason University, just trying to stay awake through his “British and Irish 18th Century Drama” class, when he got an idea. That afternoon, he wrote his first post for his new site called Sh*t Rough Drafts, imagining what the first version of our most iconic pieces of literature and cinema were like.

A year and a half later, the success of Laudiero’s site led to a book full of his hilarious imagined rough drafts of movies, TV shows, books, and more called Sh*t Rough Drafts: Pop Culture’s Favorite Books, Movies, and TV Shows as They Might Have Been.

We’ve included some of our favorite below. If you like these, be sure to follow him on Tumblr and check out his book for a lot more laughs…

(Some NSFW language)