Funny Business

A no-holds-barred look at the rise (and eventual fall) of the raunchy, blockbuster “Frat Pack” comedy films of the early 2000s—including The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Old School, Wedding Crashers, and Knocked Up—and how the effects of that raucous era are still felt even in the fractured media landscape of today.

If you were a movie-goer in the early aughts, you had a front row seat to a golden age of comedy. Ben Stiller, Seth Rogen, Will Ferrell, Owen Wilson, Steve Carell, and Vince Vaughn became unlikely leading men—a band of rowdy wedding crashers, hungover bachelors, and 40-year-old virgins dubbed the “Frat Pack” that suddenly, and surprisingly, became the center of the movie industry. Over the span of a single decade (roughly 2001 until 2011), this outsider brand of improvisational comedy took Hollywood by storm, ushering in a new kind of star and record-breaking box office returns. Then, seemingly overnight, Frat Pack movies vanished. Or did they?

In Funny Business, award-winning author and film critic Matt Singer traces the path these gonzo stars and directors took from the fringes of comedy to the mainstream—beginning on tiny stages like Second City and the Groundlings, then infiltrating into talent incubators like SNL, eventually leading to big-screen domination in Hollywood. Along the way, he shares insider stories of the films that raised a generation, including: The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Zoolander, Borat, Anchorman, Old School, and The Hangover. How did these movies and their stars come to dominate a generation of moviemaking? Who won—and who was left out—of this comedy boom? And can studio comedies make a comeback in our modern digital and streaming world?

A love letter to a bygone era, Funny Business celebrates a generation of iconic comedies and points the way forward to a (possible) new future for cinema—never forgetting that the audience always gets the last laugh.