More from the article ...

... Fast-forward to today, a time when the Hollywood studio comedy is (allegedly) dead. The past decade has witnessed a parade of postmortems lamenting the demise of this once-dominant genre, including:

- - - Hollywood Is Giving Up on Comedy (The Atlantic, 2014)

- - - The Completely Serious Decline of the Hollywood Comedy (Quartz, 2022)

- - - Were Blockers and Game Night the Last Great Studio Comedies? (Variety, 2024)

While it's easy to dismiss these headlines as hyperbolic, they aren't wrong. ...

Considering the latent demand for this format and the relatively low costs of comedy production, the genre appears to be an overlooked cash cow (on paper!). So why aren't studios like Paramount and Universal churning out dozens of low-budget comedies every year?

The unfortunate reality is that mainstream comedy no longer aligns with an operating model that defines 21st-century Hollywood -- one that prioritizes Wall-Street-friendly revenues and visual spectacle over modest, reliable profits. ...

The article goes into a lot of detail, with charts and excellent explanations ...