There was a time when Dane Cook was a household name. He broke through the world of stand-up comedy and became a full-fledged movie star, appearing in films alongside Kevin Costner, Steve Carrell and Jessica Alba. This major run on the silver screen was short-lived though, and while he put in some decent work, the outcome of this over-exposure was a few not-so-great romantic comedies. One such film was Good Luck Chuck, which was notoriously panned by critics, and now Dane Cook has revealed to us what he thinks went wrong with the film.
I recently caught up with the comic to discuss his new special Above It All, and when I asked if there was anything in his career he regrets, he said this:
I wouldn't say it’s a regret, but I, I think that when we did Good Luck Chuck, it became… there was like an extended version that became like ‘the’ version. And they just… I don't know how they did it, but they just took like a bunch of stuff that wasn't probably, it didn't matter to the storytelling and it just became more gratuitous. And I think ultimately that hurt. I don't think it hurt the movie out of the gate because I think out of the gate it was just like it was an okay movie out of the gate. You know what I mean? We didn’t, we weren't going to set the world on fire with it.
Good Luck Chuck stars Dane Cook as Charlie, a young man with a very unusual curse. When he sleeps with a woman, she ends up finding the love of her life… and it’s never him. When he falls for Jessica Alba’s Cam, he becomes worried that he’s going to lose her too, and shenanigans ensue. It’s kind of a silly premise, sure, but that’s not what sank the film. After all, as Cook said, they weren't trying to set the world on fire, but even for a sex-romp, it may have been unnecessarily raunchy. Right now, the film sits at 5% on Rotten Tomatoes.
As previously mentioned, Dane Cook was very famous at this point in time. He was being referenced on Jeopardy!, praised by Steven Spielberg, and even auditioned to play Captain America, though he did get in some trouble with Marvel for that one. Because of this whirlwind moment in his life, he had some crazy early 2000s stories to tell during our conversation, like the time he kissed Charlize Theron’s ass on national television.
Although Dane Cook’s career has changed since then, he’s still truckin’ and just released his new stand-up special Above It All. While other comedians like Gabriel Iglesias are bringing huge specials over to Netflix, Dane Cook prefers to have full ownership over everything he does at this stage of his career. This is why Above It All is currently available exclusively on his website, despite receiving offers for the special to live permanently on streaming platforms. In fact, Dane Cook feels so passionately about maintaining ownership over his work that he went on to say it’s a major factor he wishes he’d have done differently with Good Luck Chuck:
I think once that deluxe version came out, I looked at that. I was like, in the future, I would definitely have better contracts to protect. What is that version? And how can I have some more say so that if something like that were to happen, you could, you could slow the roll on a version like that?
Check out Above It All on Dane Cook’s website right now! If stand-up comedy isn’t your jam, see what movies are coming our way this year with our 2022 movie release schedule.
