Anytime a film - or film genre - becomes popular, one can rest assured that people will appear to make fun of it. Sometimes this is done in a friendly, good-natured sort of way, while other times, more pointed comedic barbs are levied at the film in question. Thus, it's no surprise that movies that exist primarily to spoof other movies have been a thing since the early days of Hollywood, with the sub-genre arguably hitting its greatest heights of hilarity in the 1970s and 1980s.
Those two decades saw the arrival of legendary spoof movies from the likes of Mel Brooks (Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, Spaceballs), and the Zucker/Abrahams/Zucker triumvirate (Airplane, The Naked Gun). The latter films even succeeded in rejuvenating Leslie Nielsen's career, who was primarily known as an dramatic actor before becoming known to a new generation as a talented practitioner of deadpan comedy. The 1990s also saw its fair share of great spoofs, including titles like Austin Powers, Hot Shots, and Galaxy Quest.
In the 2000s and beyond though, the spoof movie sub-genre has become a bit of a laughing-stock, and not in the way comedies are supposed to make one laugh. The primary source of this derision is arguably the filmmaking duo of Aaron Seltzer and Jason Friedberg, writers/directors of multiple half-baked parodies like Date Movie, Epic Movie, and Meet the Spartans. Next on their list of targets is the Star Wars franchise, in the form of the ridiculously titled upcoming spoof movie Star Worlds Episode XXXIVE=MC2: The Force Awakens The Last Jedi Who Went Rogue.
While it's unclear exactly what Star Worlds' plot will consist of, or which particular films in the Star Wars universe it plans to target for humor, the film "will leave no convention, cliché, or iconic moment untouched in yet another hilarious parody guaranteed to make you laugh, gasp, cringe, and cry out while having the best time ever in a movie theater." At least that's according to the press release announcing the endeavor. Pre-production is currently underway, with plans to shoot in fall 2017.
When one considers the critical drubbing every single one of Friedberg and Seltzer's films have taken, one might be inclined to wonder how they're still getting work at this point. The answer to that query is simple: despite those bad reviews, the duo's films make money, and lots of it. Each of their projects has been kept around a budget of about $20 million, and all of them - aside from 2008's Disaster Movie - have quadrupled that at the worldwide box office. Now, the Friedberg/Seltzer hit machine takes on Star Wars. If only someone had told Hollywood "these aren't the directors you're looking for."
Source: Covert Media and Broken Road Productions
