Vince Vaughn has revealed the scoop on why Hollywood is no longer producing edgy comedy films similar to the ones that catapulted him to fame.
The Swingers star told Sean Evans, host of the popular YouTube show Hot Ones, that the nostalgic, edgy comedies he was known for in the ’90s and ’00s have essentially ceased to exist.
The reason? The Dodgeball and Wedding Crashers star said he thinks studios are too focused on “rules” or specific guidelines for making successful movies, rather than taking risks with original ideas and trusting the creative process.
In other words, the Hollywood heavyweight said that film executives think R-rated comedies, a genre he once dominated, are too risky in the current environment and that studios would rather settle for tried-and-true stories that guarantee box office success.
“They just overthink it and it’s crazy,” Vaughn said.
Vince Vaughn has given the scoop on why Hollywood is no longer producing edgy comedy films similar to the ones that catapulted him to fame.
In a recent appearance on YouTube’s “Hot Ones,” Vaughn attributed the shift to a risk-averse studio system that prioritizes safety over creativity.
He compares this to changing the rules of geometry, which would fundamentally alter the results.
“There are rules,” he added, “for example, if you study geometry and you say 87 degrees is a right angle, then all your answers are wrong, instead of 90 degrees. Then an idea or concept emerged, like they said something like, ‘You have to have intellectual property.'”
The concept of intellectual property is a particular point of frustration for Vaughn. He argues that films should be based on a solid narrative, not simply using a well-known brand or property as a foundation.
He uses the example of ‘Battleship’, a film based on a board game, to illustrate this point, suggesting that it was simply a vehicle to tell a story, rather than a story built organically around the intellectual property.
Vaughn argued that the pressure on executives to avoid being fired has led to a culture of playing it safe, even if it means sacrificing quality. By focusing on established IPs, studios can protect themselves from failure, regardless of the film’s actual performance.
“The people in charge don’t want to get fired any more than they want to do something great, so they want to follow a set of rules that are kind of written in stone and can’t really be translated,” he told Evans.
“But as long as they keep following them, they’re not going to lose their jobs because they’ll be able to say, ‘Well, look, I made a movie of the board game Payday, so even though the movie didn’t work, you can’t let me go, right?’
Despite this, Vaughn remains optimistic about the future of comedy, suggesting that audiences are still hungry for fresh, edgy humor. He hopes to see a return to more edgy and original comedies in the near future.
“People want to laugh, they want to see things that seem a little dangerous or a little bit beyond the norm,” Vaughn mused. “I think we’ll see more of that in the movies sooner rather than later, I guess.”
