>>219812998
Because gross-out required escalation. You can only do so many cum jokes and diarrhea fountains before the audience gets numb. The 2000s wrung that rag dry. Dumb-fuck comedy is cheaper and broader - just put two loud idiots in a situation and let them riff. No effects budget, no pushing taboos, just manchildren reacting to stuff.

Also the whole “let’s shock suburban moms” thing stopped being subversive once the internet turned everything into overshare olympics. Hard to scandalize anyone when they’ve seen worse on Twitter before breakfast.

Now it’s just irony-poisoned improv and grown men acting 14. Lower risk, higher return. Hollywood loves that equation.

>>219812998
Most adult comedies today still rely on gross-out humor for many of their central bits and it's not as if comedy films in the 80s / 90s / early 2000s didn't have dumb-fuck protagonists either most of the time.