“A raunchy summer”: R-rated movies are gRRRRRReat!
We started out with this:
There have been very few surprise hits in this year of modest box office and relentless sequels. Topping the short list is “Bridesmaids,” which has stormed its way to nearly $160 million in domestic receipts. While not nearly the same sort of phenomenon, “Bad Teacher” has been a sleeper in its own right, garnering $79 million to date. And this weekend, “Horrible Bosses” got off to a solid start, taking in a higher-than-expected $28 million to beat out Kevin James’ “Zookeeper” as the weekend’s biggest new release.
Then followed up with this:
Combined, the summer’s five R-rated comedies have grossed $1.05 billion to date, an astounding total for a genre of movies that was considered second-rate only a few years ago.
As a comparison, that number is slightly ahead of the $1.01 billion earned so far by the usual parade of summer superhero pics — Thor, X-Men: First Class, Green Lantern and Captain America: The First Avenger.
Finally there’s this:
It’s been a hot summer for raunch at the box office, at least until recently. With six R-rated comedies having preceeded it on screens this summer, Sony’s “30 Minutes or Less” is the last of the studios’ louche laffers for the season, though it hardly brought the house down.
Warner Bros.’ “The Hangover Part II” leads the pack, with $253.8 million domestically, followed by Universal’s B.O. shocker “Bridesmaids, with $166.8 million.
The summer’s crop of eight R-rated comedies (including the Weinstein Co.’s “Our Idiot Brother” ) is the largest of any summer since PG-13 ratings were introduced in 1984.
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The genre improbably has outperformed other family and action titles: “Bridesmaids” out-earned “Kung Fu Panda 2” ($163.1 million), while Warner’s “Horrible Bosses,” with $110 million domestically, should surpass the studio’s “Green Lantern,” ($114.6 million).
Yes, it’s been a very raunchy summer. And with ROI like that, you may expect at least one more year of lewd and crude from Hollywood. Thus the question for screenwriters:
How much longer will this openness to R-rated comedies last in the current cycle?
They’re still selling witness the spec script “Bastards” which sold in June. In an interview, that script’s screenwriter Justin Malen made this comment:
I wasn’t setting out to write an R-rated script specifically, but because the story is about guys learning that their conservative mother was actually very promiscuous — and the shock of that — going R-rated was essential to getting the most out of the concept both comedy-wise and plot-wise. I love all types of comedy, but I do gravitate to R-rated ones. The first script I set up was called Prick, about the world’s biggest asshole. So, I was excited to write something in that tone again — minus the asshole, of course. And I also had just done an R-rated rewrite for Paramount called Time Out.
Would you be inclined to write an R-rated comedy now… or do you think that particular well is drying up?
UPDATE: To add this to the mix, I just had a meeting with a producer who has a hit movie out this summer and he underscored the degree of heat there is right now in Hollywood for R-rated comedies. Combination of price point, minimization of risk combined with maximization of profitability, and cultural zeitgeist.