One of my favorite things about going to the movies is the communal experience. In the theater, you are a bunch of strangers, but once the lights go down, a community is put together as you bond over what you’re watching on screen.

One of the most powerful uses of this force is comedy, because a movie that’s mildly funny can become hilarious with a theater full of laughter. I personally love the experience of laughing with a crowd in a movie theater, which is why it particularly upsets me that this is an experience I haven’t really had in many years.

Sure, you’ll see a movie with some laughs, but I can’t really remember the last time I saw a movie in theaters that had the whole audience in stitches. Over the last few years, we’ve basically seen the death of this genre.

This weekend, I had a lot of hope for the film “Game Night.” Here we have an original comedy, not based off of any pre-existing source material. In this era where we are bombarded with sequels and reboots, originality is rather refreshing.

Furthermore, the film is an all-out comedy, using an ensemble to tell a simple story and get a lot of laughs. As it stands, the opening weekend of “Game Night” was a mild, but not overwhelming, success: it brought in $16.6 million, according to Forbes.com.

“Game Night” is a movie that had everything going for it. Had it opened ten years ago, there’s a good chance the opening weekend might have been double what it is.

An original story? Check. Star power? Check. So while there’s no question of “what went wrong” here, there is a question of “what didn’t go right,” and what that means for moviegoing in the future.

For one thing, we have to wonder how much star power means anymore and whether more could have helped the film. We live in an interesting time because it’s been proven over and over again that a big name can’t open a movie alone. Yet, when you have great names mixed with a great story, you can have a ton of success. Here, though, I feel we may have had a lack of both.

“Game Night” stars Jason Bateman and Rachel McAdams as the leads, two extremely capable actors who have decades of great work under their belts. Yet, they have always flourished in ensembles or outside of the comedy genre. Bateman is best known for “Arrested Development” and “Horrible Bosses,” while McAdams’ most iconic role is Regina George in “Mean Girls,” with additional great performances in dramas such as “Spotlight.”

Thus, while Bateman and McAdams are both well-known actors with a great track record, the two of them alone in a movie doesn’t necessarily scream “hilarious movie.” They’re people that you’re typically excited to see once you’re watching a movie but not necessarily the ones you go to the movie to see. While we can wonder if larger comedy names could have brought people to the film, it’s ultimately impossible to know.

Usually if a big-name movie does poorly, you can attribute that to poor reviews, but “Game Night” actually did rather well with an 81 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. So, all in all, the problem here was not that they didn’t create a quality product, as “Game Night” appears to be a rather fun film. So we continue to ask, what did not go right?

At the end of the day, there might be a bit of a drought for the desire for a studio comedy in theaters. As movies like “Black Panther” continue to thrive at the box office, it creates a trend that audiences want to see spectacle when they actually watch a film on the big screen, meaning that studio comedies such as “Game Night” get relegated to the small screen.

Yes, this movie could turn a profit, but it will likely happen after a solid run on television and home video sales.

I truly hope the studio comedy is not dead because I think the idea of sitting in a crowded theater watching a hilarious movie is one of the most satisfying experiences a person can have. With that said, it will take a true breakout comedy, something that breaks the mold and is completely original, to change the course we are headed in right now.

While “Game Night” had potential, it appears that it’s not the movie to buck this trend. We have upcoming comedies such as “Blockers” and “I Feel Pretty” to look forward to, but there is a chance dark days lie ahead for this once unstoppable genre.

Erik Benjamin is a senior television, radio and film major. His column appears weekly. He can be reached at ebenjami@syr.edu and followed on Twitter @cokezeriksugar.

Published on February 26, 2018 at 10:07 pm