Rock on Raunch

Miramax may want to put a rush order on Scary Movie 2. Comedian Chris Rock predicts that Hollywood's current love affair with sleaze and raunch may have, um, climaxed.

"I think there's going to be a backlash on the whole gross-out thing," suggests Rock, who rips off a man's scalp in the dark comedy Nurse Betty, opening Friday. "It will be interesting to see where it goes because the audience grows up, and they're going to want to laugh just as hard at clean stuff or at more mature situations."

But, as Rock points out, there's a reason an increasing number of entertainers are taking the low road. "When you do gross-out humor, you don't have to be good. It's just like when I tell dirty jokes. The dirty jokes I can tell drunk — the clean jokes take a precision. It's like landing the space shuttle: You can end up on the pad or in the water."

Rock has been perfecting that delicate balance on his popular HBO series, currently in its fifth season. And despite a burgeoning film career, he has no plans to abandon the small screen. "I'll do my show as long as I can keep it at this level," he says. "I'd do a sitcom if I think I could change the format a little bit. I think my show is a different show — it's not like other shows."

And that's precisely the reason Rock refuses to jump on Hollywood's other big craze of the moment: Survivor. "Whenever I see everybody looking at something, I know that every comedian is going to be doing it, and it's like OK, can't do that — I'm going to sound like that guy," he says. "And I don't want anything in common with a lot of comedians."