Kay Cannon, a performer, screenwriter, producer and three-time Emmy nominee, had never directed anything before “Blockers,” an R-rated teen sex comedy that Universal Pictures is releasing wide Friday.
She’d written and produced for “30 Rock” and “New Girl,” written the scripts for the enormously successful “Pitch Perfect” films and created the Netflix series “Girlboss.” But directing was not yet on her résumé, and it came as a surprise when executives at Good Universe and Point Grey, the production companies behind the “Neighbors” films, hand-picked her to breathe some life into a stalled project about three teenage girls who decide to lose their virginity on prom night and the parents who try to stop them.