Genres in Hollywood come and go all the time.
Take spaghetti westerns, for example.
They became one of the most popular genres in the world, but as television arose in popularity, these spaghetti westerns became a dead genre.
Spaghetti westerns weren’t the first genre of films to die (look at silent films) and it isn’t the last. In recent years, the amount of studio Comedy movies has been decreasing at a rapid rate.
Studio comedies are movies that went through the production process just like any other movie and had a movie theater release.
Now, most comedies are just going on to streaming platforms or straight to DVD.
What happened to movies like “The Hangover,” “Grown Ups,” and “Superbad”?
Film enthusiast and projector Nevin Allen believes it has to do with the audience’s change of desires.
“Studio comedies represented a time when individual actors could get projects from start to finish that relied on their personality and charisma. But now I think most projects sort of rely on intellectual properties or franchises that audiences already know and they aren’t relying on the performers themselves,” Allen said.
According to TV Production teacher, Brian Ruth, Studio Comedies decline in recent years could also have something to do with COVID-19.
“Even then, I feel like great comedy is better in a crowd anyways. That [comedy movies being pushed straight to DVD and streaming services] is hard to believe,” Ruth said.
Not having studio comedies does not mean Comedy movies do not exist.
Netflix specifically has produced multiple comedy movies in the past year that reached #1 in the U.S. such as “Red Notice” starring Dwayne Johnson, Ryan Reynolds and Gal Gadot which is Netflix’s most-watched original movie resting at about 328.8 million views, according to CNN.com.
Ruth goes on to explain his experiences watching Studio Comedies in the theaters and how watching them from home is just a completely different experience.
“Money talks, you know? I feel like people are just being lazy and the comfort of watching a movie at home is a lot easier and less expensive,” Ruth said.
Avid moviegoers Manny Rota-Talorico and Eduardo Lai believe the decay of this genre is because of the audience’s laziness.
“I think it’s easier for the type of audience that is viewing the movies when they’re released to streaming services,” Rota-Talarico said.
Lai added that movie theaters try to please all audiences while streaming services focus on smaller, more specific audiences.
According to Ruth, he “can remember seeing ‘Superbad,’ ‘The Hangover,’ and literally being in tears because of how you fed off the crowd.
If they [the crowd] are laughing it makes you laugh. I didn’t know these movies were becoming non-existent and I think that is terrible.”