RE: It won’t let read this, maybe someone can ?1 Feb 2022 20:21
Despite not having seen a single full episode of the long-running MTV show or watched any of the three theatrical features, I am seeing Jackass Forever this evening. My general avoidance of the property is not from any cultural snobbery. The IP is just one that never popped up on my “I should catch up with this” list. Look, nobody is expecting a debut on par with the $50 million opening of Jackass 3-D in 2010. However, an opening on par with Jackass ($22 million in 2002) or Jackass 2 ($29 million in 2006) seems to be possible. One reason it might break out is because it’s the first live-action major-studio theatrical comedy in, two years.
As I wrote in 2016, as McCarthy’s The Boss earned $80 million on a $29 million budget and Hart’s Ride Along 2 ($125 million on a $40 million budget) and Central Intelligence ($217 million/$50 million) both became solid theatrical hits, the star-driven comedy worked because of the subjectivity of laughter. If you laughed at Hart and Ferrell’s Get Hard, you cared that much less if critics recommended The Wedding Ringer or Daddy’s Home. And the much smaller budgets (compared to an action/fantasy tentpole) meant you didn’t have to break records to break even.
Spending $144 million on Ghostbusters meant its $229 million cume was a disaster. However, spending $60 million on Spy meant its $235 million cume was a considerable success. Alas, 2016 was the last year where A) star-driven comedies were reliable and B) original animation was a regular big-ticket item. The star and/or concept-driven theatrical comedy was in a pickle before Covid.
As recently as 2013, We’re the Millers could earn $270 million on a $39 million budget. Johnny Knoxville’s Jackass “spin-off” Bad Grandpa could unsurprisingly open with $32 million. As recently as late 2015, Daddy’s Home could earn $240 million. By early 2018, we were “grateful” when the buzzy/acclaimed Game Night and Blockers earned just over/under $100 million. In 2016, Kevin Hart, Will Ferrell and Melissa McCarthy could open a movie. By 2020, at best only Hart qualified as Ferrell’s Eurovision was a Netflix summer hit while McCarthy’s last few comedies went to streaming.
Obviously 2020 was a year consumed by a global pandemic, but the likes of McCarthy’s Thunder Force, Ferrell’s Eurovision and Adam Sandler’s Hubie Halloween were always going to be Netflix-specific titles. Sandler was the trendsetter in this regard, signing a lucrative “do whatever the hell I want” film deal with Netflix way before it was cool. Did he foresee the coming doom for star-driven comedies as a theatrically workable sub-genre? It’s not like Jack and Jill or That’s My Boy were breaking out. Or, conversely, did making films like The Ridiculous Six and Murder Mystery for Netflix help shape the new normal?
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