Though 2006’s Accepted was a crucial and industrial flop upon its unique launch, the faculty comedy’s arrival within the Netflix high 10 proves that the film has its admirers. Launched in August 2006, Accepted is a university comedy that follows Justin Lengthy’s Bartleby, a slacker who fails to realize entry into faculty after his highschool commencement.
Apprehensive about how his dad and mom will react and uncertain of his future, Bartleby creates an elaborate faux college with the assistance of his mates, a mismatched group of misfits. Though Jonah Hill’s Sherman did get right into a prestigious faculty, he nonetheless assists his greatest pal with the deceitful plan, and wacky shenanigans quickly ensue.
As the highschool graduates try to advertise and run their faux faculty, the plan quickly reveals that the group has sudden depths and abilities that they hadn’t anticipated. Equally, regardless of receiving a frosty crucial reception again in 2006, Accepted’s cult traditional standing was verified in early 2026 when the film hit Netflix’s most-watched streaming chart.
Accepted Was A Important And Field Workplace Flop In 2006
When Accepted was launched, quite a few critics have been fast to name the plot’s premise ironic, since they argued that the film failed to achieve its personal potential, very like its underdog heroes failed to achieve theirs. The crucial failure of Accepted was solely compounded by a poor field workplace efficiency, because the film made solely $36 million on a price range of $23 million.
Though there are many faculty comedies with raunchier content material, extra unique plots, and stronger performing, Accepted nonetheless managed to redeem its poor popularity lately. That is due partly to the film’s spectacular solid, who’ve gone from energy to energy within the years for the reason that film’s launch.
Shortly after Accepted, the actor who performs Lengthy’s love curiosity, Monica, Blake Energetic, was solid in Gossip Woman, and Energetic went on to turn into a serious Hollywood star. Though his profession was suffering from controversy in 2023, Hill turned a serious comedy within the years after Accepted’s launch because of roles in Superbad and Get Him to the Greek.
The 21 Bounce Road franchise made Hill a professional blockbuster star, whereas The Wolf of Wall Road and Moneyball proved he had critical dramatic chops. Lengthy was already a serious star when Accepted was launched, having appeared in cult classics like Jeepers Keepers and Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, however his presence makes the film much more of a quintessential ‘00s comedy.
Accepted’s Field Workplace Failure Modified Hollywood Comedy Historical past
Though Accepted is perhaps beloved by Netflix viewers in 2026, the failure of the film upon its unique launch had fairly large implications for the way forward for American comedy cinema. On the time of Accepted’s launch, R-rated, mature comedies have been out, and most main studio comedies have been rated PG-13 or decrease.
Many main hits from the period, together with Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, Imply Women, Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, the Austin Powers motion pictures, and most of Adam Sandler’s output, prevented the dreaded R-rating. R-rated comedies have been rarer and sometimes had decrease budgets, like Lengthy’s earlier film Ready…, or Clerks 2.
The uncommon big-budget R-rated comedies of the period tended to be field workplace failures, like Tenacious D within the Choose of Future. Nevertheless, the seeds of change had already been sown earlier than the failure of Accepted when Judd Apatow’s 2005 hit The Forty-12 months-Outdated Virgin made a staggering $177 million on a price range of solely $26 million.
The mixture of Accepted’s high-profile failure and The Forty-12 months-Outdated Virgin’s sudden success prompted a change through which comedies obtained funding, and Hollywood’s comedic output turned rather more reliably R-rated within the late ‘00s. Accepted’s underperformance prompted a transfer away from safer PG-13-rated comedies towards the R-rated Apatow period.
Superbad and Knocked Up each arrived a 12 months later to large field workplace success, and these hits have been adopted by Pineapple Categorical, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Tropic Thunder, Step Brothers, Bridesmaids, and an entire slew of different profitable R-rated comedies. Though PG-13 comedies nonetheless existed, like Drillbit Taylor and I Love You, Beth Cooper, they have been usually criticized for feeling toothless and outdated.
Accepted’s Netflix Success Highlights A New Development
The sudden streaming success of Accepted highlights a latest, totally sudden leisure pattern, particularly a nostalgia for the aesthetic of early ’00s comedy. Whereas Netflix’s different latest hit, 2 Broke Women, was a 2010s sitcom, there may be loads of proof that viewers need to return to the recognizable fashion of early ‘00s Hollywood comedy motion pictures.
From the Imply Women musical remake launched in 2024, to motion pictures that mannequin their fashion and tone after early ‘00s comedies like Snack Shack and Bottoms, to the return of the Scary Film franchise, there are quite a few examples of audiences actively looking for out a return to early ‘00s Hollywood comedy. Thus, the sudden Netflix success of Accepted won’t be so stunning on this context.
- Launch Date
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August 18, 2006
- Runtime
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93 Minutes
- Director
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Steve Pink