Jorma Taccone has been involved in enough beloved comedy failures to know the box office is not the final word. On the latest episode of VICE Culture Club, the Lonely Island member and MacGruber director talks with Jackson Garrett about Over Your Dead Body, an action comedy thriller out April 24. The real question, though: will anyone go see it? Comedy movies can’t seem to pull an audience in theaters these days.
Taccone speaks from experience. He’s fully aware that Hot Rod, MacGruber, and Popstar didn’t exactly light up the box office when released. “Hot Rod bombed,” he says. “MacGruber came out. I was like, okay…people are going to find this.” And he was right. People later found those movies, quoted them endlessly, and in turn, they became cult classics.
He has a better perspective than most because he’s not stuck mourning some vanished comedy boom. What interests him is what still gets people into theaters now, and the conclusion he keeps coming back to is scale, surprise, and audience reaction. “It’s hard to get people to leave the house and plant their money down,” he says.
Taccone says Over Your Dead Body solves that exact problem. It’s violent, ridiculous, and built for gasps. Garrett compares that experience to going to a concert or seeing a movie with a crowd that’s fully locked in together. Taccone agrees. “It’s just so fun to see movies with audiences,” he says. “That’s what makes it worth going to the movies.”
He also has a pretty clear sense of what still cuts through for viewers, including himself. He points to I Think You Should Leave as something “very pure of tone,” praises Friendship for getting people out to the theater, and brings up Weapons as a movie that can wake up a crowd by constantly swerving away from what they expect. That’s his biggest point. Taccone isn’t asking for comedy to come back in some broad nostalgic sense. He’s talking about movies that feel specific enough, weird enough, and alive enough that watching them alone on a couch feels like missing the point.
From there, the episode loosens up and goes full adVICE segment. Garrett throws Taccone questions on pitching, sex, and working with friends, and Taccone answers them with the perfect mix of stupidity and sincerity.
When the subject turns to creative partnerships, Taccone says it comes down to “a healthy ego” and trust in your people, an idea that runs through the whole episode. Whether he’s talking about comedy, touring, or theaters, Taccone keeps coming back to the same thing: people still show up when the chemistry is real.
Watch the full episode on the VICE Culture Club YouTube Channel.
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