Where did all the big-screen comedies go?
Before the major studios pulled back on their greenlights of feature comedies, Vince Vaughn was an integral part of their success, his largely comedy-driven filmography minting $3.7 billion at the global box office.
“[The motion picture business] is far more corporate and far more risk-averse than it ever was,” the star of Hulu/20th Century Studios’ Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice tells us at the Deadline Studio @ SXSW. “And they’re working off these rules for all the reasons that don’t really translate.”
He adds: “Look at stand-up comedy. People are packing into Madison Square Garden. They want that live experience if it feels fun and authentic. I think however they got there, we lost a little bit of what all these music and movies were, which is the wrong business. It was always young people, in the culture, getting a chance to tell stories.
“I’d love to see some people under 30 get a camera in their hand and be left alone, whether it’s a comedy or anything that they’re interested in. And there was always a certain amount of swings of that type that the industry would take that they just don’t take anymore,” he explains.
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“And then the issue becomes [that] you don’t have the win for independent films like we did in the ’90s. There was places you could release them, and that would buy them. And now you got a lot of really good movies made that do well at the festivals. But there’s not really the economics of it, because there’s only a couple streamers and they’re not going to overpay for it. So it’s really a self-imposed problem where we’re not letting the movie and or the music business be what it is, which is a place to further culture or explore stories and not have one size fits all.”
(L-R) Eiza González, James Marsden and Vince Vaughn in ‘Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice’
20th Century Studios
Directed and written by BenDavid Grabinski, Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice follows Nick (Vaughn), a mobster,whose older self time-travels from the future to try and stop a big job. At stake is a love triangle between Nick, Nick’s wife Alice (Eiza González) and Nick’s friend/associate Quick Draw Mike (James Marsden). The pic world premiered at SXSW on Saturday and hits Hulu on March 27.
Setting up the film, Vaughn says it’s about “a bunch of characters who’ve made terrible choices, and then they’re struggling their way through those consequences, like a morality tale.”
Vaughn, underscoring his point that audiences crave more original movies, pointed to the pic’s positive trailer reaction.
“It’s a huge crowd movie. It’s got action and comedy and actually the buzz on it is stronger because it is something fresh. People are tired, people are fatigued by the rehash. People want to see new stories,” he said.
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Vaughn was pretty much mum on what Season 2 of Apple TV’s Bad Monkey will offer. While the majority of the production was shot in California, unlike Season 1, “we shot some in Florida with the exteriors.”
Season 2 is not based on the Carl Hiaasen novel Razor Girl, rather it’s an “interim one, in between” that novel. But as far as Razor Girl goes, “that would be the plan to do that,” says Vaughn. Meanwhile, “David Dobkin, the director of Wedding Crashers, came in and did a bunch of episodes.”
Vaughn also chats with us about playing double himself Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice, and gives an update on the long-gestating status of Wedding Crashers 2.
Deadline Studio at SXSW presented by Redbreast Irish Whiskey