Comedy actor and “The Righteous Gemstones” regular Adam Devine appeared on the This Past Weekend podcast during his press tour for Netflix’s “The Out-Laws” a few weeks ago.
A clip from that discussion which was posted several weeks ago has gone viral today as the “Pitch Perfect” and “Workaholics” star talked about the lack of plain ol’ comedy movies in the marketplace in recent years.
Studio-backed movie comedies were once fairly plentiful and big draws at the box-office right up until about a decade ago. Films ranging from “The Hangover” to “Old School,” “Dodgeball,” “Road Trip,” “Ted,” “Blades of Glory,” “Talladega Nights,” “Bridesmaids” and the like were hits and usually profitable for the studio as they were relatively cheap to make.
These days they’re not around much anymore beyond the odd outlier (“Game Night,” “Blockers,” “Girls Trip”) or the occasional streamer hit (“Eurovision Song Contest,” “Vacation Friends”).
DeVine shared his theory which puts the blame on Marvel movies and other superhero and blockbuster films that rely so much on humor that they’re seen as the new ‘comedies’ to filmgoers:
“You watch comedies nowadays and you’re like, this is not a f—ing comedy. Where are the jokes? Where are the bits? There’s still good [comedy] shows, but movie comedy…it’s hard.
My theory: I think Marvel ruined it. I feel like superhero movies ruined comedies because you go to the theater and you expect to watch something that cost $200 million to make, and comedy movies aren’t that.
So you’re like, ‘Why would I spend the same amount of money to go watch a little comedy in the theater if I can spend that and watch something that is worth $200 million?’
And they still make those movies kind of funny, like, ‘Oh my god, is that raccoon talking? This is hilarious!’ Which it is, but it’s not a real comedy.
Every studio used to put out several comedies a year, and there were like 45 comedies in the theater per year. So every week or so, there’s a new comedy in the theaters. Now, last year, there was like 6 or 7. It’s crazy.”
DeVine’s “The Out-Laws” was produced by Adam Sandler’s Happy Madison label and is essentially a “Meet the Parents” style premise with the ‘parents’ (Pierce Brosnan, Ellen Barkin) being bank robbers and DeVine’s character a straight-laced bank manager. That film is now streaming on Netflix.
