The success of “Bridesmaids” may lead the way to a new kind of movie -- the gross-out women’s comedy.
Raking in $108.8 million so far, the R-rated film -- written by star Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo -- took its cue from the success of buddy comedies like “The Hangover,” but aimed it at a female cast and female anxieties, with a poop scene as its most memorable set piece.
In the process, the Judd Apatow-produced Universal comedy seems to have single-handedly gestated a new movie genre.
“Bridesmaids” has an “opportunity to open the door to the crazy, vulgar female comedy -- and I’m not saying ‘vulgar’ dismissively,” Linda Voorhees, a screenwriter and UCLA School of film and television lecturer, told TheWrap.
Within a week of its opening there was talk of a sequel, and this week, two studios bought pitches for two comedies that are likely to appeal to women.
Apatow and "Bridesmaids" director Paul Feig sold Universal a pitch for a nontraditional romantic comedy that Apatow told TheWrap will probably end up with enough raunch in it to get an R rating from the Motion Picture Association of America.
And Tuesday, DreamWorks bought Sascha Rothchild's pitch for "Who Invited Her," which is about a woman who goes to a bachelor party. Reese Witherspoon is producing and possibly starring.
Certainly, "Bridesmaids," shot on a budget of $32.5 million, further dispelled the long-held cinematic notion that R-rated comedies are a realm that belongs to young males.
Also read: Judd's a Genius Again! 'Bridesmaides' Over-Performs at $24.4M
In fact, "Bridesmaids" debuted to an audience that was 67 percent female, according to Universal, and only 37 percent were under the age of 30.
Even before that there was plenty of recent box-office evidence to suggest a healthy demand beyond young males for raunchy, sexually and scatologically charged comedy.
In January, for example, Paramount's Ivan Reitman directed rom-com "No Strings Attached" -- which scored an "R" rating and bore the promo line, "Can sex friends stay best friends?" -- commanded an opening audience that was 70 percent female. The $25 million Paramount film went on to gross $147.8 million at the global box office.
That film paired the hunky Ashton Kutcher alongside Natalie Portman in a relationship comedy that was sans explosive bathroom sequences. But even some seemingly more guy-oriented "R"-rated comedies are working with women young and old these days.
Look at "The Hangover Part II," one of the top-grossing R-rated comedies of all time. It commanded on audience that was 51 percent female. The original 2009 "Hangover" brought in an audience that was 48 percent female.
Even the very guy-oriented "Hall Pass" was only narrowly male-dominated (55 percent vs. 45 percent).
“The tendency of women to see R-rated movies goes back before ‘Sex and the City,'" the 2008 female-targeted comedy that grossed over $415 million globally, Vincent Bruzzese, president of the research firm Ipsos OTX, told TheWrap.
