{"id":471,"date":"2010-08-04T13:01:01","date_gmt":"2010-08-04T20:01:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/?p=471"},"modified":"2010-08-04T13:01:01","modified_gmt":"2010-08-04T20:01:01","slug":"weekend-preview-funnyman-will-ferrell%e2%80%99s-waning-box-office-allure-gets-tested-with-the-other-guys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/?p=471","title":{"rendered":"Weekend Preview: Funnyman Will Ferrell\u2019s waning box office allure gets tested with THE OTHER GUYS"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Will Ferrell returns this weekend with THE OTHER GUYS another comedy parody from the team that brought us ANCHORMAN, TALLEDEGA NIGHTS, and STEP BROTHERS. And while those three films have meant box office gold and packed in the laughs, the Will Ferrell magic has waned in recent years. With exception of STEP BROTHERS in 2008, Ferrell\u2019s box office gravitas has begun to lessen.<\/p>\n

Last year\u2019s LAND OF THE LOST, for example, was an embarrassment costing Universal Pictures a bundle\u2014the movie\u2019s budget was reportedly a $100 million and its domestic box office only managed a meager (relatively speaking) $49 million. Reaching back to SEMI-PRO in 2008, I couldn\u2019t find any budget figures, but the domestic box office reached a tepid $33 million. Certainly the studio New Line Cinema that delivered that air ball took quite a beating. <\/p>\n

LOST and SEMI-PRO traded heavily on Will Ferrell\u2019s clumsy and irreverent comedic personality often relying on crude language and adult situations. Sadly, the decision to take LOST in an adult direction with Ferrell even dropping the \u201cf\u201d bomb, left the movie without a real identifiable audience. Sadder still was the fact that LAND OF THE LOST was an adaptation of a cheesy but loved kids\u2019 television show which if handled correctly could have attracted kids and their nostalgic parents. Sure the movie was meant as an irreverent parody and the source material wasn\u2019t sacred, but such utter disregard for audience taste proved to be a bad business decision. And Will Ferrell\u2019s career might never be the same.<\/p>\n

But Ferrell\u2019s failures haven\u2019t been under the direction of Adam McKay who arguably has been the architect of Ferrell\u2019s biggest successes. 2006\u2019s TALLEDEGA NIGHTS: THE BALLAD OF RICKY BOBBY made the most money of the duo\u2019s prior collaborations raking in almost $150 million domestically. The narratively smaller STEP BROTHERS in 2008, also a McKay directed film, performed very well cracking the $100 million mark. <\/p>\n

With THE OTHER GUYS McKay returns to familiar territory\u2014the parody. The film spoofs the buddy cop genre featuring Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg as two loser officers working in the shadow of two super cops, played by Samuel L. Jackson and Dwayne \u201cThe Rock\u201d Johnson. Of course, the idea of spoofing this genre is nothing new. Just last year director Kevin Smith tried this with the critically maligned and financially unsuccessful COP OUT. <\/p>\n

From the trailer for THE OTHER GUYS it appears that McKay\u2019s tendency to go for the completely ridiculous and unrealistic will be front and center. Pushing the joke well past the punch line and wringing out another layer of hilarity has been a successful formula for the McKay\/Ferrell pairing. And McKay will once again rely on Ferrell\u2019s clumsy comedic style to make it all work. Surrounding him with A-List talent will help, but ultimately because this is an Adam McKay comedy, Ferrell is the name on the top of the marquee here. The responsibility rests on Will Ferrell\u2019s funny furrowed brow. And if THE OTHER GUYS fails to resonate with viewers we will understandably see a scaling back of large budgets for McKay\/Ferrell comedies. And we might also see a declining career similar to that of Martin Lawrence and Tim Allen. Is a WILD HOGS in Will Ferrell\u2019s future?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Is the McKay\/Ferrell future riding on this weekend’s performance?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","no-thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=471"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":473,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471\/revisions\/473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}