It ain’t easy being funny.
Just ask Marlon and Shawn Wayans, who are slumped in their chairs at Manhattan’s Four Seasons Hotel restaurant, heads back, eyes closed, moaning about not having slept properly since 1999.
That’s when they started writing “Scary Movie,” the sleeper spoof of teen-slasher films that grossed an astounding $300 million worldwide.
Although the marketing campaign for that film, released last year, boasted a “No Sequels” tagline, that kind of box office is hard to ignore.
So, in the very best fright-flick tradition, the Wayans brothers are baaa-ack.
Teaming up again with their director brother, Keenen Ivory, Marlon and Shawn co-wrote and star in “Scary Movie 2,” which skewers the supernatural genre, parodying films such as “The Exorcist,” “Poltergeist” and “What Lies Beneath.” There is also a potpourri of pop references, from “Charlie’s Angels” to “Mission: Impossible II.”
“We didn’t feel any pressure to top the first one,” insists Marlon. “We just put pressure on ourselves to be funny again. It’s not about being more outrageous – you’ve just got to stay funny.”
Writing the kind of humor the Wayans brothers excel at involves watching a lot of movies, and, yes, many sleepless nights.
“I think spoofs are really hard to do; it’s no walk in the park,” Shawn says. “It’s the hardest of the genres to do.
“The Zucker brothers, Mel Brooks – those guys get mad props. At the time they did their thing, but nobody else since really wants to do it, ’cause it’s hard. With a regular comedy, you tell the story, allow the characters to grow, space out your laughs. You don’t have that with spoofs – it’s three jokes a page.”
Really, who needs a plot when the first movie was such a blockbuster success?
Still, “Scary Movie 2” is based loosely around a mad professor (Tim Curry) who recruits a group of college students for a weekend getaway under the pretense of a scientific experiment.
Shawn reprises his role as the sexually confused Ray and Marlon is back as Shorty the pothead, along with an ensemble cast including Anna Faris, Regina Hall, Kathleen Robertson, Tori Spelling as a “Fatal Attraction”-style stalker, and James Woods, taking over the cameo role of an exorcising priest that Marlon Brando abandoned due to illness.
“What we focused on was the jokes,” Marlon says. “We have the benefit of doing that in a parody, because that’s the most important thing in this movie. We don’t care about the other stuff.
“Is it funny? Then put it in. If the audience laughs, we’ve done our job. Where does the plot take you? Does it take you to a joke? Cool.”
Audiences laughed plenty at “Scary Movie,” which relentlessly pursued laughs.
“We thought we had something special, but we didn’t know it was going to hit as big as it did,” Shawn says.
“[The 1988 Wayans brothers film] ‘I’m Gonna Git You Sucker’ was a spoof of blaxploitation films and [1996’s] ‘Don’t Be a Menace…’ spoofed the ‘hood movies. They were hilarious, but they were spoofing smaller genres, so they had smaller audiences.
“Whereas, ‘Scary Movie’ was parodying ‘Scream,’ which was a franchise that had a huge audience.”
The Wayans are confident their sequel is just as funny, if not funnier, than the first. How can they be sure? Responses from numerous test screenings.
“We just listen to the audience’s laughter and make adjustments,” Shawn says. “We always test a lot to see what people respond to. This way, when we put it out there for the masses, it’s more digestible; it’s like a cook who tests the food then puts salt on it.”
Marlon adds: “We constantly rewrite. We believe in working until it’s a locked picture. We’re constantly trying to add jokes and keep it fresh. That’s the beauty of working right to the end – we have jokes that are so current.”
The Wayans look exhausted now but, once rested, they’re certain they have more spoofs in them.
“I’ll tell you what the next one will be when I wake up,” Marlon says. “We could do parodies forever. I don’t know if we want to continue with the ‘Scary Movie’ franchise, but the same brand of humor is going to stay.”