Ben Stiller doesn’t think his 2008 satirical comedy Tropic Thunder would get made today.

The Zoolander actor starred alongside Robert Downey Jr., Jack Black and Jay Baruchel in the action comedy, in which they played a group of egotistical actors who are thrown into a survival situation after they’re dropped in the middle of the jungle to make a Vietnam War film.

Stiller, who also co-wrote and directed the film, admitted to Collider that the project probably wouldn’t work in today’s social climate.

“I doubt it (could be made today). Obviously, in this environment, edgier comedy is just harder to do. Definitely not at the scale we made it at, too, in terms of the economics of the business,” he said. “I think even at the time we were fortunate to get it made, and I credit that, actually, to Steven Spielberg and DreamWorks. He read it and was like, ‘Alright, let’s make this thing.’ It’s a very inside movie when you think about it.”

The most controversial element of the film is Downey Jr.’s character Kirk Lazarus, who undergoes “pigmentation alteration” surgery to play a Black soldier.

“The idea of Robert playing that character who’s playing an African American character, I mean, incredibly dicey,” Stiller acknowledged. “Even at the time, of course, it was dicey too. The only reason we attempted it was I felt like the joke was very clear in terms of who that joke was on – actors trying to do anything to win awards. But now, in this environment, I don’t even know if I would have ventured to do it, to tell you the truth. I’m being honest.”

The actor previously defended the film on social media, insisting last year that he makes “no apologies for Tropic Thunder” and remains “proud of it and the work everyone did on it”.

Downey Jr., who received an Oscar nomination for the film, came to its defence earlier this year.

“The spirit that Stiller directed and cast and shot Tropic Thunder in was, essentially, as a railing against all of these tropes that are not right and (that) had been perpetuated for too long,” he stated on the Literally! With Rob Lowe podcast.

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