This Is The One 2000s Movie That Doesn’t Deserve To Be Made Today, According To Its Screenwriter

You could never make the 2000 cult hit comedy Dude, Where’s My Car? in the supposedly hyper-sensitive media landscape of 2025 – nor should you, according to the guy who wrote it.

Nowadays, the big-studio, mid-budget comedy movie is practically an endangered species, and comedy fans who remember when critically reviled but commercially successful slacker romps dominated the yearly release schedule love to point fingers at various industry and societal factors for causing those movies to fall out of fashion. The most tired culprit in the demise of the comedy movie is wokeness, or political correctness, or maybe cancel culture – just pick whichever phrase is most popular among washed-up former stars of the genre.

“You couldn’t make X movie nowadays” is, by far, the most tired line in the discussion over cinematic comedy and its struggles, but, to the credit of the anti-woke crowd, sometimes that statement is absolutely on the money. In the case of Dude, Where’s My Car?, it’s hard to imagine that 20th Century Studios would ever take a risk on the tale of two lazy, giggling pizza delivery drivers on a quest to locate their Renault Le Car, but the lesson there isn’t what fans of the movie might think it is.

Dude, Where’s My Car? screenwriter Phil Stark recently penned a column for The Hollywood Reporter titled, “I Wrote ‘Dude, Where’s My Car’ 25 Years Ago. It Would Never Be Made Today,” in which he explained why he “cringed” at his own jokes the last time he watched the movie.

Stark, who wrote on That '70s Show before collaborating with series star Ashton Kutcher on a comedy/sci-fi movie about a couple of bumbling bros who accidentally find themselves at the center of a struggle to save the galaxy, wrote that “comedy has changed dramatically in the past quarter century. This became apparent to me upon a recent DWMC rewatch, when I was struck by just how much I cringed at the humor.”

“Some of the comedy feels so dated, even offensive,” Stark reflected of his own script, “Sure, the tone is light and silly and the humor comes largely from the charming and stone-y performances of Ashton and Seann (William Scott). But there is plenty of humor that plays at the expense of transgender people, ethnic minorities, women, gay men, religious cults and Fabio.”

“Did it feel this cringey 25 years ago? I don’t think so. The humor seemed appropriate at the time,” Stark continued, “But then again, so did Matchbox Twenty.”

As Stark pointed out, since he hit his career peak as a screenwriter, the mid-budget comedy movie fell out of fashion as horror films replaced them in the marketplace. That ‘70s Show concluded in 2006, leaving Stark at an impasse where his scripts weren’t selling or weren't getting made – but, instead of blaming the audience for falling out of love with the kind of “broad, crude humor” that gave him his early success, he made a change in his own life.

Stark is now a licensed therapist, and he works with clients who are dealing with uncomfortable life changes and career difficulties like the ones he experienced during the demise of mid-budget, low-brow comedy. Instead of blaming the woke mob for turning away from films like Dude, Where's My Car?, Stark changed with the times, finding a much more productive answer to the question of, “And then?”