Vince Vaughn Explains Why R-Rated ’90s Comedies Went Out of Fashion

“They just don’t make ’em like they used to,” said every movie fan ever. But Vince Vaughn (the star of ’90s and 00s hits like Swingers, Wedding Crashers, and Dodgeball:A True Underdog Story) knows why. Nostalgia for older movies has always been a powerful force affecting cinephiles, but the growth of social media has seen that effect increase tenfold. Sites like Instagram, X, Facebook, and YouTube are filled with disgruntled moviegoers complaining about the lack of original storytelling in Hollywood. While audiences usually attribute this effect to Hollywood’s status as a money-making machine, according to Vaughn, that isn’t the whole truth.

Vince Vaugh recently braved the iconic chicken wings of Hot Ones to promote his new Apple TV+ series Bad Monkey. The actor was asked about his starring roles in the comedic classics of a bygone Hollywood era, and what he thought had changed about Hollywood’s approach to movie making. Vaughn held a similar opinion to most movie fans, expressing that Hollywood has become infatuated with creating movies based on pre-established intellectual property. He said:

”
They just overthink it. You get these rules, it’s like if you did geometry, and you said 87 degrees was a right angle, then all your answers are messed up […] They would say something like, ‘You have to have an IP.’
So, for some reason, battleship, which is a game we used to play like a graph, became a vehicle for storytelling. It’s so weird. Whereas like an IP like John Hughes from our neck of the woods, right? An IP was ‘A girl turning 16.’ Every girl turns 16. Or, ‘I’m gonna cut school.’ You know, life situations.”

However, Vince Vaughn attributes Hollywood’s fascination with IP-based movies to a fear of individual failure from studio executives, rather than overt greed. The actor explained:

”
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 which somehow, like it’s set in stone, they don’t really translate
. But as long as they follow them, they’re not gonna lose their job, because they can say ‘I made a movie off the board game Payday. Even though the movie didn’t work, you can’t let me go.'”

Vince Vaughn Has Shifted Towards More Dramatic Roles

Vince Vaughn dominated the R-rated comedy space during the late ’90s and 00s. The actor was a frequent collaborator with Ben Stiller, appearing in Zoolander, and Starsky & Hutch. Vaughn’s penchant for comedy continued into the early 2010s, starring in The Watch and The Internship. While Vaughn still takes on comedic projects, his career took a shift in 2015 when the actor started favoring dramatic characters. Following his major role in Season 2 of HBO’s hit crime drama True Detective, Vaughn starred in the Oscar-winning Hacksaw Ridge.

Vaughn’s most type-cast breaking role came in 2017, when the actor starred in Brawl in Cell Block 99. For the role, Vaughn shaved his head, sporting a massive cross tattoo on the back of his head, to play Bradley Thomas, who struggles to survive in prison after a federal deal goes wrong. Vaughn is still taking on comedic roles, with his new Apple TV+ series, Bad Monkey, bringing his 00s sarcastic charm to the small screen. In the new show, Vaughn plays Andrew Yancy, a former Miami PD detective who’s demoted to becoming a restaurant inspector in the Florida Keys.