CAN BIG-SCREEN COMEDY SURVIVE THE SUPERHERO ERA?
Days before the opening of the Will Ferrell-Amy Poehler comedy “The House,” producer Adam McKay could see the writing on the wall. The box-office forecast for the film wasn’t looking good.
In the end, “The House” opened with just $8.7 million, the latest in an increasingly long line of comedy flops. “The House” may have had its problems (Warner Bros. opted to not even screen it for critics) but what stood out about the result was how dispiritingly typical it was.
“This has just been happening a lot. If it’s not our comedies, it’s other comedies from friends of ours that just are underperforming very consistently,” said McKay, whose production company with Ferrell makes
