For Hollywood, the state of big-screen comedies has been so grim you almost have to laugh. There are genres that have dominated the cineplex in recent years — special effects-heavy blockbusters, family films and scream-in-your-seat horror movies. But comedies? Not so much after the Covid-19 pandemic.
A recent spate of theatrical funnies is trying to change that. This month, studios have released one comedy after another, starting with Paramount Pictures’ reboot of The Naked Gun, starring Liam Neeson and Pamela Anderson, and Walt Disney’s more-than-20-years-later sequel Freakier Friday, which reunited Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan. Both received solid reviews from critics.
Next up is Searchlight Pictures’ The Roses, a remake of The War of the Roses, and Neon’s Splitsville, an original film about messy marriages starring Dakota Johnson.
It’s an unusual cadence for a genre that fell out of favour with studios over the past decade or so as onscreen laughs largely moved to streaming. But bringing audiences together for a funny movie is just as important as getting them to collectively flinch during a jump scare, film-makers say.
"People realise the need for a communal experience when they see a horror movie, but I think everyone kind of forgot the need for a communal experience to laugh together," director of Freakier Friday Nisha Ganatra said.
"Why do we have to just trigger fight-or-flight in people as a communal experience? Why can’t we just trigger joy and connection?"
Hollywood comedies were a cash cow for years, but they’ve run up against a number of hurdles.
They got more expensive to produce, particularly as the stars from comedy’s boom years in the 2000s became more prominent. And US-made comedies don’t always work internationally, which can dent their overall box office potential.
Hollywood’s history is entwined with comedy. During the silent film era, audiences flocked to see the physical antics of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. Decades later, the comedic chops of stars such as Eddie Murphy, Chevy Chase and Mike Myers drew viewers to the big screen.
More recently, the 2000s marked a surge for theatrical comedies. From the TV broadcaster fights of Anchorman to the gross-out satire Borat and the drunken escapades of The Hangover, comedies were a mainstay at the box office.
But since then, the number of wide-release films and global theatrical revenue has trended steadily downward
Part of that shift can be attributed to the rise of streaming and the pandemic, which shut theatres and caused studios to rethink what movies were suitable for the big screen. Comedic films increasingly migrated to streamers, such as this year’s Will Ferrell and Reese Witherspoon-led romantic comedy You’re Cordially Invited on Prime Video, or 2021’s star-studded satire Don’t Look Up on Netflix.
Comedy has also blossomed in series form, with shows like Netflix’s Nobody Wants This, Apple TV+’s The Studio and Hulu’s Only Murders in the Building. The success of these shows, as well as a glut of stand-up comics’ streaming specials, point to a hunger for laugh-out-loud content, industry insiders say. Now, it’s just a matter of porting that interest over to the big screen — or reacquainting audiences with that theatrical comedy experience, film-makers hope.
"The idea of comedy in the marketplace has been working in television and in streaming in a big way," producer of The Naked Gun Erica Huggins said.
"The more we change people’s habits to appreciate and get excited about wanting to go and see it in the theatre, it’s going to catch on."
Huggins said The Naked Gun was always a theatrical play for Paramount. And studio insiders said the recent box office performances of that film and Freakier Friday had suggested that comedies could still be theatrical draws.
And in such difficult political and global times, the opportunity to laugh together might be more important than ever, film-makers said.
"The world is different, and it’s a serious time in the world," Huggins said.
"Comedy is something that we all feel like we need these days." — TCA
