Weekend Thread | July 7-9 | Weekend Estimates on Page 32

[Krissykins]

8 hours ago, Brainbug said:

Out of curiosity: What is your favourite comedy?

 

Mine is probably either Hot Fuzz or a german comedy (which probably nobody here has ever heard of) called Der Wixxer, which is a satire of Edgar Wallace crime storys.

 

6 hours ago, Napoleon said:

I hate to be so basic, but for me it’s Mean Girls. It’s probably every millennial gay man’s favorite comedy, but that’s deserved. Such a perfectly hilarious and iconic movie. 

Jawbreaker

Bring It On

Mean Girls

Legally Blonde

Bad Moms

The Devil Wears Prada

Romy & Michele’s High School Reunion

Jennifer’s Body

 

Paul Feig films really make me laugh:

Bridesmaids

The Heat

Ghostbusters

Spy

 

Booksmart & Bros are the two recent ones that really made me laugh out loud throughout. 

[Celedhring]

9 minutes ago, SchumacherFTW said:

What was the last BIG pure comedy to do gangbusters? Something tells me it was 22 Jump Street which would be very depressing. 

 

Pitch Perfect 2 came out a year later, but yeah, that's still not good.

 

I can't think of any pure comedy (not animated) doing over 150 mil since then.

[KP1025]

5 minutes ago, Celedhring said:

 

Pitch Perfect 2 came out a year later, but yeah, that's still not good.

 

I can't think of any pure comedy (not animated) doing over 150 mil since then.

 

Does Crazy Rich Asians count? That grossed $175 million DOM.

[Celedhring]

4 minutes ago, KP1025 said:

 

Does Crazy Rich Asians count? That grossed $175 million DOM.

 

Ah yeah, forgot that one. That definitely counts.

[FilmFincher]

The daughter reveal in 22 Jump Street might be one the last times I just couldn't stop laughing in the cinema. The whole crowd went nuts. 

[baumer]

Role models made me laugh maybe more than any other movie has in the last decade or so. Every scene with Jane Lynch had me holding my stomach from the pain of laughing so much, especially at the end when she tells him what she used to do with the judge.

[Dominic Draper]

2 minutes ago, baumer said:

Role models made me laugh maybe more than any other movie has in the last decade or so. Every scene with Jane Lynch had me holding my stomach from the pain of laughing so much, especially at the end when she tells him what she used to do with the judge.

I really loved that one and also "I love you,man"

[WorkingonaName]

I remember literally everyone in my primary school was quoting "My names Jeff" in 2014.

Edited July 8, 2023 by WorkingonaName

[baumer]

I miss the Rth days. 

[IronJimbo & Sheldon's Son]

If MI7 is allowed to have a 9-day opening weekend in some countries then The Flash should be allowed to have an 11-day opening weekend. Put some respect to its name! Congrats Flash on having a $87.5m OW!

[Eric is Quiet]

I will say that an easy solution for comedies to succeed, outside of some obvious sequels, is to just go the Blumhouse route. Make comedy movies on shoestring budgets, making them low enough that even 40M or whatever box office will suffice and make it profitable. Build enough of a brand like Blumhouse that gets comedy fans excited and trustworthy, and you can get your Get Out or Black Phone style hits. It’s such an obvious play, but no producer wants to take charge. I don’t get it.

[BadOlCatSylvester]

5 minutes ago, Eric Bunny said:

I will say that an easy solution for comedies to succeed, outside of some obvious sequels, is to just go the Blumhouse route. Make comedy movies on shoestring budgets, making them low enough that even 40M or whatever box office will suffice and make it profitable. Build enough of a brand like Blumhouse that gets comedy fans excited and trustworthy, and you can get your Get Out or Black Phone style hits. It’s such an obvious play, but no producer wants to take charge. I don’t get it.

The big problem with comedy as a whole is that it is very language-based. And that's a major issue in a moviegoing landscape that is much more global than ever before, as most big comedies come from the States and therefore don't translate well overseas. Horror, the genre Blumhouse specializes in, is much more universal and has a big core audience that will show up, as we're seeing with In5idious this weekend.

[ListenHunnyUrOver]

27 minutes ago, Eric Bunny said:

I will say that an easy solution for comedies to succeed, outside of some obvious sequels, is to just go the Blumhouse route. Make comedy movies on shoestring budgets, making them low enough that even 40M or whatever box office will suffice and make it profitable. Build enough of a brand like Blumhouse that gets comedy fans excited and trustworthy, and you can get your Get Out or Black Phone style hits. It’s such an obvious play, but no producer wants to take charge. I don’t get it.

This is a good idea, but how cheap can they go? If comedies get cheaper it’ll just drive away most name talent. 

[MightyDargon]

Comedy died because gross out comedy stopped being funny once Hollywood did it once too often but ALSO because they forgot how to write comedy that wasn't shit/vomit/drug jokes. There were plenty of non gross out comedies in the 70s, 80s, and even most of the 90s. By the 2000s, gross out had become the preferred thing because it was lazy and stupid to write and screenwriters knew they'd get a bunch of idiots to clap like seals and make URRR URRRR noises for the opening weekend at least. But gross out alone couldn't sustain comedy and it basically died in the mid 2010s.

 

[baumer]

I know this has been mentioned before but the problem with comedies today is that I don't think a lot of people want to pay that kind of money to go to the theater to watch a comedy it's going to be on Netflix in 6 weeks. It's just kind of the harsh sad reality of the times that we live in now.

[M37]

3 hours ago, SchumacherFTW said:

What was the last BIG pure comedy to do gangbusters? Something tells me it was 22 Jump Street which would be very depressing. 

Depends on how you define "gangbusters", but that was the last comedy to gross at least $150M domestic. What is interesting is that following the Jump Street period (2012-2015) - which also included $125M+ Ted, Neighbors, We're the Millers, Ride Along, Anchorman 2 and Central Intelligence -  female skewing comedies have picked up:

 

Pitch Perfect 2 (2015) = $184M

Crazy Rich Asians (2018) = $175M
Girls Trip (2017) = $117M

Bad Moms (2016) = $113M

Pitch Perfect 3 (2017) = $105M

 

CRA is the last comedy of any kind to get to $100M, with Good Boys (2019) the most recent moderate comedy hit at $83M. There's really been a shift, especially on the male skewing side, to blend comedy with action, like Central Intelligence, Jumanji, and the like. I suspect with streaming and even social media providing more accessible laughs, audiences expect more than a few good jokes to be willing to pay for tickets, with the exception being typically under-served audiences (though that likely has shifted as well post-pandemic)

Edited July 8, 2023 by M37
Missed CRA

[baumer]

16 minutes ago, MightyDargon said:

Comedy died because gross out comedy stopped being funny once Hollywood did it once too often but ALSO because they forgot how to write comedy that wasn't shit/vomit/drug jokes. There were plenty of non gross out comedies in the 70s, 80s, and even most of the 90s. By the 2000s, gross out had become the preferred thing because it was lazy and stupid to write and screenwriters knew they'd get a bunch of idiots to clap like seals and make URRR URRRR noises for the opening weekend at least. But gross out alone couldn't sustain comedy and it basically died in the mid 2010s.

 

 

I'm not trying to play dumb here but can you give me an example of a Gross out comedy? There's definitely a few scenes in American pie that can be defined as gross out, but they also added a lot to the story and they weren't just one off bits of comedy just to get a cheap laugh. But I digress I'm just curious as to what you think is a Grosso comedy. Again I'm not disagreeing with you I'm just curious as to what you think.

[Brainbug]

3 minutes ago, M37 said:

Girls Trip is the last comedy of any kind to get to $100M, with Good Boys (2019) the most recent moderate comedy hit at $83M, followed by Night School (2018 = $77M). There's really be a shift, especially on the male skewing side, to blend comedy with action, like Central Intelligence, Jumanji, and the like. I suspect with streaming and even social media providing more accessible laughs, audiences expect more than a few good jokes to be willing to pay for tickets, with the exception being typically under-served audiences (though that likely has shifted as well post-pandemic)

 

To elaborate on that, weve also seen in the last 10 years that MCU films and Superhero movies in general basically cover any genre now and not just the action one. For example, the first GOTG was for a lot of people more comedy than action film, Deadpool 1 and 2 basically are R-Rated Comedys (and were curiously succesfull when "classic" R-Rated comedys were declining hard) and Thor 3 and 4 also can honestly be classified as comedys.

 

So maybe one could argue that the big mainstream superhero movies had so much comedic elements to them that audiences simply didnt feel the need to watch the "actual" comedys sine then? I personally think this could be one of many reasons to explain the decline of comedys, but im not sure how important of a role it might have played.

[MightyDargon]

12 minutes ago, baumer said:

 

I'm not trying to play dumb here but can you give me an example of a Gross out comedy? There's definitely a few scenes in American pie that can be defined as gross out, but they also added a lot to the story and they weren't just one off bits of comedy just to get a cheap laugh. But I digress I'm just curious as to what you think is a Grosso comedy. Again I'm not disagreeing with you I'm just curious as to what you think.

American Pie is a pretty good example in that it was where a lot of bad habits got started, although the problems were less evident then because early 2000s was when gross out stuff had just taken over. Better examples of the excesses once they were in place include Freddy Got Fingered, Step Brothers, and the Hangover movies. You also had the godawful Seltzerberg comedies which used a fair amount of gross stuff.

[JohnnyGossamer]

I mean, I thought Triangle of Sadness was super funny. Not a huge hit though.