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“I think it’s pretty safe to say that most people dread holiday travel,” offers director Paul Feig. “And when something goes wrong, adults can mitigate the situation by canceling their flights, booking a hotel or renting a car. But what if you’re stuck in an airport as a minor? What would you do if airport officials locked you up in one room with other kids and told you to stay there all night long?”

The screenplay for “Unaccompanied Minors” was based on Susan Burton’s story “Babysitting” on Chicago Public Radio’s Peabody Award-winning program “This American Life.”

“I heard this story on the radio about two sisters who get stuck in an airport traveling from one parent to another,” recalls producer Michael Aguilar. “It struck me as a great idea for a movie because there was adventure, fun and an emotional center. So I got together with writers Jacob Meszaros and Mya Stark to create a group of young fictional characters who get stuck in an airport over Christmas without their families and create a little makeshift family of their own.”

Together with Aguilar, fellow producer Lauren Shuler Donner looked for the right director to realize their project. A few years ago, Paul Feig had established his knack for telling stories about adventures in adolescence as creator of the critically acclaimed television series “Freaks and Geeks.”

Shuler Donner states, “We were so glad that Paul really responded to the material.

He has such a unique voice and style, and he is so good at combining physical comedy with heartwarming elements. Plus, nobody understands early teen angst like Paul.”

Having appeared on “This American Life” himself, Feig shares, “I was drawn to this project for so many reasons. I am always trying to tell stories about family or about people bonding together. Here you have five kids from separate families joined together by the fact that they’re mostly kids of divorced parents and, during the holiday season, are sent around from one parent to the other. I just love the idea of strangers who are thrust together and find that they have things in common. Also, I’d been wanting to make a fun, physical, sort of old-fashioned comedy like the kind I grew up watching. I just wanted to try and capture that fun slapstick style of comedy.”