By Unless you think of Adam Sandler as a Wordsworth-level genius who, for the good of humanity, needs to be given a generous stipend and absolute creative control, you'll be aware that Netflix does not have a good track record in comedy films.
The list of stinkers is long. Special Correspondents. The Ridiculous Six. The Week Of. Netflix's policy of giving massive sacks of cash to male comedians over the age of 50 hasn't returned much, and while the charming and wholehearted Always Be My Maybe and Dumplin' have point to a better future having cut through with stories told by people outside that bracket, they were buoyed by a Twitter-slaying Keanu Reeves cameo and the unsinkable tunes of Dolly Parton respectively. Netflix can do comedy series brilliantly. Its films are mostly hopeless.
That might be about to change, though. According to HN Entertainment, Pierce Brosnan is joining the upcoming Netflix comedy film Eurovision with Will Ferrell and Rachel McAdams.
There's scant info on what exactly Brosnan's likely to be doing in Eurovision, but we pray that it will involve him unfurling those honking pipes of his. Whatever you think of the Mamma Mia-verse, his goose-trapped-in-a-cave renditions of 'SOS' and 'When All Is Said And Done' rank among the most purely joyous moments of cinema ever recorded. The comic potential of him as an Engelbert Humperdink-style legacy entertainer on a last desperate bid for glory is so vast it should be tested as a renewable energy source. Then again it's from the director of The Change-Up, so maybe not.
It might well be very silly indeed, and Ferrell hasn't led a decent comedy in nearly a decade. If this signifies a shift in Netflix's strategy toward getting a former James Bond, teaming them with a veteran comedian and an American woman and setting them loose in a competition with unbounded camp value, then it is at least a little bit more interesting than what's come before. But it does look a lot like what's come before so far.
The difference between Netflix's comedy series and its films might be that it isn't immune from the same truths that have meant the last mega-hit comedy outside of the Marvel stable was The Hangover II back in 2011. Television comedies that thrive have a unique tone and outlook - think of Fleabag or Russian Doll or Derry Girls - but without a breakout indie or heavyweight star-led comedy from a big studio, the trend in cinema has been toward the middle of the road. Look at Booksmart for instance: brilliant, unusual, and sadly underwhelming at the box office. You'd think that Netflix's opaque approach to viewing figures would free it up to make more strange and interesting comedies, but apparently not.
So that's why we're pinning all our hopes on Pierce to turn things around. It's a hope more fragile than his ability to hit that high A in the bridge of 'SOS', but it's all we've got at the moment.
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