If you’re wondering why it’s increasingly rare to see comedies in theaters, Adam Devine says he has a good idea as to what happened. According to the Workaholics star, Marvel is to blame for dwindling comedies, suggesting the Disney-owned studio has produced movies so large, movie-goers have not only become accustomed to seeing blockbusters rather than small-scale fare, but would rather choose to do so.
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“You watch comedies nowadays and you’re like, this is not a fucking comedy,” Devine said on a recent episode of Theo Von’s This Past Weekend. “Where are the jokes? Where are the bits? There’s still good [comedy] shows, but movie comedy…it’s hard. My theory: I think Marvel ruined it. I feel like superhero movies ruined comedies because you go to the theater and you expect to watch something that cost $200 million to make, and comedy movies aren’t that. So you’re like, ‘Why would I spend the same amount of money to go watch a little comedy in the theater if I can spend that and watch something that is worth $200 million?’ And they still make those movies kind of funny, like, ‘Oh my god, is that raccoon talking? This is hilarious!’ Which it is, but it’s not a real comedy”
The comedian added, “Every studio used to put out several comedies a year and there were like 45 comedies in the theater per year. So every week or so there’s a new comedy in the theaters. Now, last year, there was like 6 or 7. It’s crazy.”
Now Devine finds himself amongst the likes of Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola as prominent filmmakers that have a bone to pick with the House of Ideas. After all, it was Scorsese who kicked the latest movement off nearly four years ago after he said he didn’t feel Marvel movies were “cinema.”
“I don’t see them. I tried, you know? But that’s not cinema,” Scorsese told Empire at the time. “Honestly, the closest I can think of them, as well made as they are, with actors doing the best they can under the circumstances, is theme parks. It isn’t the cinema of human beings trying to convey emotional, psychological experiences to another human being.”
