The Real Reason Why Hollywood Quit R-Rated Comedies
By Movieguide® Contributor
Actor Vince Vaughn shared his theory for why Hollywood stopped making the R-rated movies that made him famous, but the truth is much simpler.
“They just overthink it,” Vaughn told Hot Ones while explaining why executives no longer create R-rated comedies. “It’s crazy, you get these rules. Like, if you did geometry and you said 87 degrees was a right angle, then all your answers are messed up, instead of 90 degrees. So there became some idea or concept, like, they would say something like, ‘You have to have an IP.’”
“The people in charge don’t want to get fired more so than they’re just looking to do something great, so they want to kind of follow a set of rules that somehow get set in stone that don’t really translate,” he added. “But as long as they follow them, they’re not going to lose their job because they can say, ‘Well, look, I made a movie off the board game Payday, so even though the movie didn’t work, you can’t let me go, right?’”
While Vaughn is right that filmmakers no longer want to make R-rated comedies, it is not purely because they want to play it safe. Rather, it is because they miss a core audience, leading to poor returns at the box office. WEDDING CRASHERS, for example – one of Vaughn’s most successful movies – only made $288 million worldwide, and it is one of the most successful R-rated comedies ever released.
The actor, however, believes R-rated comedies are in hot demand, and he hopes they will make a comeback in the near future.
“People want to laugh, people want to look at stuff that feels a little bit like it’s, you know, dangerous or pushing the envelope,” Vaughn said. “I think you’re going to see more of it in the film space sooner than later, would be my guess.”
Vaughn is mistaken on this point, as more and more, audiences are opting for uplifting, family-friendly movies over the raunchy content that Vaughn is known for. Audiences, on the other hand — even young audiences — prefer uplifting stories that resemble their own lives above all else. Movieguide®’s 2023 Report on the Entertainment Industry revealed the extent of this desire as none of the top 25 movies last year featured excessive sexual content or drug use. Content of this type, in fact, cannot find a large enough audience to be successful anymore, even when boosted by a recognizable name.
Movieguide® previously reported:
There’s a reason why shows like EUPHORIA and THE IDOL are rife with turmoil behind the scenes.
EUPHORIA is filled with severe pornographic sex and nudity, drugs, alcohol, homosexuality and mental health issues, all giving the message that these things are part of normal teen life. With gross immorality and an extremely skewed picture of reality, it’s bound to dangerously affect those who interact with it, especially its cast and crew.
“Stories about what was happening behind the cameras on EUPHORIA flowed, with analysis of every plot point and every hint of dysfunction,” The Hollywood Reporter observed. “Vulture ran a February 2022 article headlined, ‘A Timeline of EUPHORIA Obsession and Sam Levinson Hatred.’ The Daily Beast ran its story laying out allegations of a toxic set, with workdays that sometimes stretched from 15 to 17 hours…There were reports of actresses questioning why they had to be in the nude for certain scenes.”
EUPHORIA producer Kevin Turin and writer-director Sam Levinson were once very tight partners but had a major falling out. Turin suddenly passed on Nov. 12, 2023, from a cardiac arrest. Levinson and his wife, Ashley, were both banned from attending his funeral.
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