The Year of the Comedy?

The Dark Knight is destroying all of it's competition at the Box Office this summer, as it rightfully should be considering it is one of the greatest and smartest summer blockbusters ever made.  Yep, I said it.  But believe it or not there are also some other films that have come out this year or are coming out this year that are believed to generate some serious revenue... and a lot of them are comedies.  The Judd Apatow crew has, for better or for worse, changed the face of modern movie comedies and they keep having hit after hit.  I loved last years surprise hits Knocked Up and Super Bad and I was looking forward to seeing what the team could come up with this year.  They have already released the critically acclaimed mini-hit Forgetting Sarah Marshall, which I have yet to see.  And this weekend they have opened the stoner violent comedy Pineapple Express to some mixed reviews, but the box office will be great (though reports indicate that The Dark Knight looks like it will come on top again bringing its domestic haul to 441 million dollars...JESUS!).  I'm not sure if the Apatow gang has another other films up it's sleeve for the rest of the year (I haven't done that much research as of yet), but its safe to say that they will continue to be able to make pretty much anything that they want for a long time to come.  Even though their films are filled with goofy pot loving morons, they are sweet and honest and at times so much more intelligent and in touch with the current generation than other dreck that passes for comedy these days.  

But we don't just have Apatow comedies to look forward to this year.  No, by summers end two more certain to be hits will have landed.  The first being the Ben Stiller directed war movie send up comedy Tropic Thunder.  Tropic Thunder's early buzz has been mostly positive with some even going as far as saying that Robert Downey Jr. deserves an Oscar nomination for his role as an Australian actor who undergoes a pigmentation surgery in order to play a black soldier.  The premise for that character alone is enough to get me to buy a ticket (I plan on going to the midnight screening, something I mostly only do for huge event films, Like the Dark Knight).

 The other film that hits late this August is the Sundance hit Hamlet 2.  This is the film I am really looking forward to.  It looks hysterical and it has been a while since a good film has come out that mocks theater in a loving fashion.  And since this one is so obviously mocking musical theater, my personal passion, you can bet that I will be there on opening night to take it all in.  With a song like "Rock Me Sexy Jesus" how could you not want to see this film?

I love that these films are coming out just before Oscar season really hits.  It will be a great comedic prelude to all the seriousness we will have to sit through this fall and early winter. So my question remains... is this the year of the comedy? If we take the Dark Knight out of the equation could these films become the top money makers for the year?  Certainly not individually, but when pooled together it might become clear that the comedy is back in considerably late fashion.  Or I could just be full of shit.  We shall see once the box office receipts come in.