I think a lot about the whole "they could never make blazing saddles nowadays" thing and beside the joke answer of "no shit, somebody already did make it" (as if we aren't surrounded by remakes constantly, INCLUDING one of blazing saddles), there's a good reason they couldn't
straight comedies, especially theatrically released ones, are kinda... not really a thing anymore? you'll get a handful of them on netflix (mostly romcoms), but for the most part you're only going to get hybrid genres. now, you could argue that blazing saddles is a western comedy hybrid, but I kinda disagree with that? similar to spaceballs, it's a parody work, and parody works especially aren't a thing anymore
but another thing that gets me about the whole argument by shithead idiots saying "you haven't been able to make a movie like that since the 80s" bullshit faux nostalgia thing is like...
I saw tropic thunder in theatres in 2008
tropic thunder is a movie where robert downey jr spends the whole-ass movie in blackface. tropic thunder is a movie that these nerds quote to this fucking day without even noticing. not only that, but it spent like three fucking weeks at the number one spot in the box office! it was a whole thing!
but the big thing is that comedy as a genre, regardless of its sensibilities, really isn't a thing so much anymore? and that's probably entirely a financial incentive thing more than anything else. see, around the same time tropic thunder came out, the same year tropic thunder came out, you know what else did?
iron man. and the dark knight. and a whole host of other movies that showed that the current blockbuster model was really, really starting to take over around then. not as in "oh these are the biggest movies" but "oh, these should be ALL the movies because why make $200,000,000 if you're lucky with a comedy when you could make $500,000,000 to 750,000,000?"
because even when comedies do well, they don't completely destroy the box office and that's gonna be a bigger consideration than anything, y'know? and that's also why comedies are largely just a thing on netflix now, because the financial incentives there are kinda way different
you couldn't make tropic thunder today for the same fucking reason you couldn't make abbott and costello meet frankenstein
