Oscar winner Jennifer Lawrence stars in “No Hard Feelings,” an R-rated raunchy comedy about a woman who agrees to seduce a 19-year-old misfit. The reward? A shitbox car. Desperate times call for desperate measures.
These days, it’s rare to find such a comedy at multiplexes and Lawrence tells Variety that the current lack of big-screen comedies has to do with today’s culture sensibilities where anyone can be offended by anything:
I think it’s time for a good old-fashioned laugh and it really is hard to make a comedy where you’re not offending people. Everybody in some sense will be offended by this film — you’re welcome.
Just to be clear, “No Hard Feelings” is not that offensive, unless you find J-Law fighting teenage brats, completely nude, as crossing the line, but point taken.
Last month, former Amazon Studios head Roy Price noticed some raw data regarding comedies and shared it via Twitter. His findings showed that the number of comedies being theatrically released, on a year to year basis, has plummeted in recent years.
In 1997, comedies made up 20 percent of the total movie market. In 2003, comedies peaked at 21.4 percent — that year had “Old School,” “Bad Santa,” “The School of Rock,” “Elf,” “Freaky Friday” and “A Mighty Wind.”
By 2020, the comedic market share went down to a record low 3.8 percent. This year, we’re at around 6% and it’ll likely go down with not many comedies being released in the fall.
Has our culture lost its sense of humor? We need to laugh now, more than ever. These is such a self-serious era we live in, It’s time for fearless filmmakers to bring back edgy comedy and be unafraid of the repercussions that might come with it.
Edward Berger seems to have settled on what comes next. His Lance Armstrong biopic, starring Austin Butler, is now holding casting calls, with production eyed for January.