By Dorothy Pomerantz, Forbes
Updated 5:09 p.m. PT, Thurs., March. 19, 2009
Laurel and Hardy never discussed their feelings. Martin and Lewis didn’t worry about having enough male friends. Lemmon and Matthau were more interested in bickering than hugging.
That was the old model for buddy movies, where men goofed around with each other, made audiences laugh, but never discussed the deeper meaning of their friendships. By contrast, today’s men are more enlightened (and less homophobic) when it comes to their relationships with one another. They confide their worries, they act vulnerable, they hug. Hence the new model for the buddy comedy: the bromance.
The word “bromance” reportedly dates back to the early 1990s, when it appeared in Big Brother, a skating magazine, to describe the relationship between skateboarders who spent lots of time together. Brother plus romance equals bromance.
Today, the bromance can be a ticket to big box-office revenues. Audiences love seeing George Clooney and Brad Pitt in the “Ocean’s” movies, not just because of their good looks but because they know the two men are close friends in real life. Director Judd Apatow has based his career on the concept. His movies feature man-boys who often learn about themselves by bonding with other men. One of the last scenes in the movie “Superbad” features Jonah Hill and Michael Cera cuddling.
The bromance trend is at the center of DreamWorks’ latest movie, “I Love You, Man,” opening March 20. The film tells the story of Peter Klaven, a guy who is about to get married but doesn’t have any pals who can serve as his best man. So he starts going on man dates to try to find a best friend.
The movie stars Paul Rudd and Jason Segel, making this their third film together. In the spirit of the bromance we decided to look at the most profitable male couplings of the last five years. We picked the teams and then added up the worldwide box-office sales for all of the films each pairing appeared in together.
Topping the list are Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson. Their eight films together have earned a total of $1.8 billion at the box office. “Night at the Museum” was the highest grossing at $574 million. A sequel is in the works for this year. Their lowest-grossing film was Permanent “Midnight,” in which Stiller played drug addict Jerry Stahl. The movie earned only $2 million.
In second place: George Clooney and Brad Pitt. The four movies they have appeared in together earned a total of $1.3 billion at the box office. The “Ocean’s” trilogy accounts for most of that money. Last year they both starred in the Coen brothers’ movie “Burn After Reading” (but never appeared onscreen together).
Apatow’s gang takes up two of the spots on our list. Seth Rogan and his younger doppelgänger, Jonah Hill, along with Rudd and Segel, all appeared in 2007’s “Knocked Up.” Rogan and Hill’s movies have grossed $863 million in total, ranking them third on our list. Rudd and Segel’s films have earned $324 million (not including “I Love You, Man”).
At the bottom of our list are Kevin Smith and Jason Mewes. The pair appeared in six of Smith’s movies as dope-loving Jay and Silent Bob, and starred together in “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back,” their highest-grossing film, which earned $34 million at the box office. But all together their films have earned only $109 million.
