In celebration of the recent 20th anniversary of her iconic romantic comedy How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, made at the end of the rom-com heyday, star Kate Hudson appeared on the talk show The View, to discuss not only her beloved film opposite Matthew McConaughey, but also the reason she believes we aren’t seeing the same caliber of films in this genre anymore. How to Lose a Guy in 10 Day made $105 million at the domestic box office and $177 million worldwide, and in comparison, the recently-released rom-com Anyone But You, starring Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell, has earned a decent $38 million and counting worldwide.
Hudson said of the current state of the genre:
“It’s hard to get male movie stars to make rom-coms. That’s a big part of the equation … is to have that event. If we can get more Marvel guys like … hey, come to do a rom-com! That’s part of the formula, too. That event.”
Not only is it tough to get male actors to join a romantic comedy, which is silly, because if done well, it doesn’t hurt their career, but also the amount of decent scripts written for the genre are few and far between.
Hudson went on to say:
“I think it’s about the writing, and how we’re investing in telling the story of the writing and the directors. If you look at the classic rom-coms or movies that last forever — because they do, they’re the ones that last forever; people go back and back — they had the best writers. Nora Ephron! It’s more about how the studios are investing in the talent.”
Though it has seemed to Hudson like leading men are hard to come by, Aquaman star Jason Momoa recently expressed interest in doing a romantic-comedy film and even pitched making a 50 First Dates sequel to Drew Barrymore. He told Men’s Health in 2020 that he’d love to play a “romantic-comedy lead, but so far nobody will hire me for it.” Um, that’s crazy. How has he not been snatched up for a rom-com? Let’s make that happen.
But to Hudson’s point about the scripts and studios investing in these types of stories, we reported a year ago that Julia Roberts said she would have loved to have continued to make romantic comedies over the last 20 years, but there were just no good scripts.
So it looks like the solution is to make a bunch of romantic comedies that are funny and smart, starring Jason Momoa. Get on that, Hollywood.
via: Variety
