Marvel's latest victim? Theatrical comedies, according to Adam Devine

There is a contingent of film enthusiasts (whose mascot is Martin Scorsese) that thinks Marvel Studios is the scourge of cinema. There are various reasons one might feel that way, but here’s Adam Devine’s: Marvel, he theorizes, has killed the mid-budget theatrical comedy.

“You watch comedies nowadays and you’re like, this is not a fucking comedy. 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,” he said on Theo Von’s podcast in July pre-strike. “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.”

One of the other issues, he said, is the “message comedy,” unsubtly referencing Don’t Look Up: “You get to the end of what you think is a comedy and you’re like, ‘Is that about global warming? Is there some like, deep hidden message that like, I’m supposed to recycle more?’”

In between joking with Von about making a comedy about transgender vehicles (presumably because no edgy comedian in the year 2023 can let five minutes go by without taking potshots at trans people), Devine expressed his concerns about the business of theatrical comedy. While he credits Netflix for being “willing to roll the dice a little more,” traditional avenues have dried up. “Every studio used to put out several comedies a year. And there were like 45 or 46 comedies in the theater per year,” he explained. “So every week or so, there’s a new comedy in the theaters. And then now, last year, there was like 6 or 7. It’s crazy.”

Devine knows that critics will just say to “make better comedies,” but that’s harder to do when the studios are offering fewer chances to make any comedy at all. He pointed to The Machine and About My Father coming out at the same time as an example of the studios undercutting comedies’ success: people would have to choose between which one they prefer to see, meaning the potential profits are cut in half (not every movie weekend is going to be Barbenheimer). “The more opportunities we have to make classic comedies,” Devine argued, “the more we’ll be able to nail it.”