‘Fifty Shades of Black’ star Marlon Wayans says the spoof genre is alive and well

It was bound to happen.

After becoming a global phenomenon in book and film form, the erotic thrill machine “Fifty Shades of Grey” is getting the parody treatment thanks, of course, to the Wayans family.

“We were going to do a parody book because the book was so hot. And then we saw the movie, and we thought, ’Oh, this has got to be a movie,’” said Marlon Wayans, who stars in “Fifty Shades of Black” and also co-wrote the film with Rick Alvarez.

The film, opening Friday in the District, takes the same formula of the sadomasochistic thriller, already an edgy concept, and turns the comedy up to 11, with jokes that go for broke in the same fashion that Mr. Wayans and his brothers Shawn and Keenan did with the original “Scary Movie” back in 2000.

Mr. Wayans decries the notion that the parody/spoof genre was a product of the 1980s and ’90s and has since gone out of fashion.

“It’s a genre, and no genre is going to go out of style,” he said. “It’s cyclical, and I think it depends on who’s doing it.

“Not everything is going to be an Apatow movie. I love Judd’s movies, but they’re a little bit more cerebral, and we’re a lot more physical.”

Indeed, there is seemingly no line Mr. Wayans and his brothers — all veterans of the sketch show “In Living Color” — will not cross for a laugh in “Scary Movie” and other films like “White Chicks.” The most extreme of those films’ gags are indescribable here, but there is no body function or sexual guffaw that is safe from them.

In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Mr. Wayans once said he wanted to “make the stupidest movies ever, because they make people laugh and they make money.” Ergo, in the new S&M parody film, Mr. Wayans said that he and Mr. Alvarez looked for “the places they talked about but didn’t really go to” in “Fifty Shades of Gray” when writing the script for “Black,” one of them being a more thorough investigation of the types of whips that his character, Christian Black, would use on his submissive.

“What about different whips in history?” Mr. Wayans said. Once again pushing for the absolute edge, he said, “We got a ’Roots’ whip and a ’Django Unchained’ whip and a ’12 Years a Slave’ whip. And then you find the perfect whip, the perfect belt, and it’s Joe Jackson’s.

“You just find ways to escalate the joke and elevate it with the [source material].”

Mr. Wayans said he and his siblings’ penchant for humor came about as a way to deal with growing up poor in New York.

“My house was always a ruckus, it was just who we were,” Mr. Wayans related of his tender years. “When you’re poor, oftentimes, to make you feel better, you make jokes. I don’t think we all knew we were going” to work in showbiz, he said.

Showbiz, like home, was a family affair. When Kennan Ivory Wayans launched “In Living Color” in 1990, he hired brothers Shawn and Marlon as well as sister Kim to work on the long-running, politically incorrect sketch comedy show that also featured a then-unknown Jim Carrey and Jamie Foxx. After the show’s cancellation, Marlon and Shawn had their own sitcom, “The Wayans Bros.,” which ran for five seasons.

Then came “Scary Movie,” in which Shawn Wayans, while stabbing someone to death, breaks the fourth wall, complaining of the “Wayans Bros.” cancellation, and the comedy “White Chicks,” in which the brothers switched both races and genders.

“I love working with Shawn,” Marlon Wayans said of his brother and collaborator. “He gives me that straight person, and I enjoyed being ridiculously crazy, and then i’ll play straight for him and he can be ridiculously crazy. So we always wound up rounding [out] each other, which is important in comedy.”

In addition to his other comedies like “The Sixth Man,” Mr. Wayans, a graduate of the New York School of Performing Arts, has also put in his time on dramatic films like “Requiem for a Dream,” the 2000 Darren Aronofsky drama in which he played a heroin addict.

Mr. Wayans is also trying his hand at stand-up comedy. At a time when many comedians are eschewing college campuses and their politically correct atmospheres, Mr. Wayans said that the challenge of producing humor for a college audience is “you’ve gotta make them think. They’re a bunch of little thinkers.”

“Fifty Shades of Black” co-stars Jane Seymour and “Brady Bunch” star Florence Henderson, with whom Mr. Wayans has a love scene.

“I don’t tell” what that experience was like, Mr. Wayans demurs.

Mr. Wayans said he would still like to do an action comedy and work in a comedy where he can play multiple characters, such as Eddie Murphy in “Coming to America,” which would allow him to show “a wider range in terms of my skill set.”

In addition to Mr. Murphy, Mr. Wayans counts as his inspirations Charlie Chaplin, Jackie Gleason, Richard Pryor, Art Carney and his former “In Living Color” co-star Mr. Carrey.

After “Fifty Shades,” Mr. Wayans said he will return to nonparody comedies and possibly a straight-up drama.

“Then maybe come back and do a parody,” he said.