Vince Vaughn Explains Why ‘The People In Charge’ No Longer Finance R-Rated Comedies

Vince Vaughn has a theory about the death of R-rated comedies — and isn’t mincing words.

The “Swingers” star famously made his bones with a string of raunchy, expletive-laden films at the turn of the millennium. When asked on “Hot Ones” Thursday why R-rated comedies no longer dominate the box office in the same way today, the former funnyman kept it real. (“Hot Ones” and HuffPost share a parent company, BuzzFeed.)

“They just overthink it,” said Vaughn about movie studio executives. “And it’s crazy.”

“You get these rules,” he added, “like, if you did geometry and you said 87 degrees was a right angle, then all your answers are messed up, instead of 90 degrees. So there became some idea or concept, like, they would say something like, ‘You have to have an IP.’”

Movies based on IP (or intellectual property) are certainly attractive prospects for financiers, as those projects already have a fan base and a proven history of demand. The shift toward comic book films, for instance, was largely based on the decadeslong success of their IPs.

While Vaughn recently guest-starred on Larry David’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” whose explicit humor was largely created through improvisation, he remains most famous for his R-rated comedies of yesteryear: “Old School” (2003) and “Wedding Crashers” (2005).

Those films were modestly funded with $24 million and $40 million, respectively, and hit thousands of theaters to gross more than $75 million and $288 million. Vaughn believes studios are too scared these days, however, to keep gambling on offensive comedies.

“The people in charge don’t want to get fired more so than they’re looking to do something great, so they want to follow a set of rules that somehow get set in stone, that don’t really translate,” he explained Thursday.

“But as long as they follow them, they’re not going to lose their job, because they can say, ‘Well, look, I made a movie off the board game ‘Payday’ so even though the movie didn’t work, you can’t let me go, right?’” Vaughn continued.

While times have certainly changed and R-rated comedies largely land on streaming services today, Vaughn has hope for their future. He not only argued that “people want to laugh” at “dangerous” humor, but said it might return to theaters before we know it.

“I think you’re going to see more of it in the film space sooner than later,” he concluded.