Word: hollywood
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...summer, the year and maybe the decade--comedy has become the most reliable source of Hollywood profits. Moguls love to hit the home run of a Pirates or a Lord of the Rings, but they live on the bloop doubles of Talladega Nights and Meet the Fockers. A top comedy star may earn the same as an action star, $20 million to $25 million a picture, but that could be nearly half of a comedy film's budget; everything else (script and director, supporting cast, production cost) is cut-rate. "You can make three comedies for every action movie," says...
...more popular talent contests and reality shows. Movies have stepped into that gap. There's a connection with TV, of course: nearly all of today's movie-comedy stars (Carell, Stiller, Ferrell) started on the small screen. The biggest hits also depend on two of the oldest, most productive Hollywood combustions: first between script and star, then between star and audience...
Even further back, in Hollywood's golden age, stars--including comedy stars--radiated glamour. Cary Grant could whinny, do a pratfall and wear a dress, but he was still one of the handsomest, most seductive men on the planet. Comedy audiences today are not looking for gorgeous people with cute problems; anyway, they're not finding them (with the exception of that pearly, Grant-like anachronism, George Clooney). The movement has been from class to mass and, in some cases, to jackass...
...audiences not want to see them at the center of a comedy? Next year, Universal will try Baby Mama, with Tina Fey as a career woman who hires Amy Poehler to carry her child. Our blessings upon it. But until some comic actress has a big fat hit, Hollywood will keep thinking of comedy as Guytown--one more genre, like action movies, where women need not apply...
...filed by the New York City businessman who says he faces public ridicule after he was filmed frantically running from Sacha Baron Cohen's character. "Have you noticed that people that file lawsuits like this act as though they have never been embarrassed in their lives?" asks blogsite HOLLYWOOD SNARK. SCORE...