When will comedy movies rebound at the box office?

It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia has been going strong for 20 years, easily holding the record for most seasons for a sitcom. That’s pretty steady work…especially if comedy movies are bombing at the box office, as Charlie Day says.

Always Sunny star Charlie Day recently said that while he has had good opportunities to expand into comedy movies, they don’t offer the stability that the series does. “There was a time when there were a lot of big comedy movies happening, and I thought, maybe I was going to be on the road more often, and then those just kind of dried up, so I’m glad I didn’t quit my TV day job, you know?”

Day brings up an interesting topic that has been the subject of debate for a while now. Are comedies actually dead at the box office? Let’s take a look…If we were to scroll the 20 highest-grossing comedy movies ever domestically, only three are from this decade (and only one of those, Barbie, wasn’t a sequel), while another four are from the 2010s. Really, the last consistent heyday for comedies on the big screen was the 2000s, where The Hangover, Bruce Almighty, Wedding Crashers, and Elf all finished in the top 10 of their respective years and easily sit within the aforementioned top 20 list. Now consider Charlie Day’s highest-grossing comedy, Horrible Bosses, which took in $117.5 million – a strong haul for an R-rated comedy but barely enough to crack the top 25 of 2011. (Its sequel couldn’t even manage half of that.)

Objectively, it’s been an awfully long time before a comedy reigned at the box office, Barbie aside. And even that was an anomaly, taking in more than twice than the current runner-up, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (but that’s a sequel and so another argument entirely). Judd Apatow, who played a significant role in helping comedies reclaim box office glory, made the prediction last year that the pendulum will once again swing towards the genre. But when will that be?

As for another opportunity that Always Sunny gives him, Charlie Day added, “In this town, when you get the opportunity to do something, you take it. Plus, it’s been great for me, I don’t know, it’s kept me in town…I’m getting on the back half of raising a son, I’ve been around, he knows who I am.”

Does Charlie Day have a point about comedy movies or does it sound like he’s been huffing glue? Chime in with your take in the comments section below!

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