WHy the film industry abandoned rom-coms.
When people think of rom-coms, it’s usually the same titles that come up: Bridget Jones’s Diary, Notting Hill, The Proposal. These movies have something in common—they were released in the late ’90s and early 2000s, a time when films like these were a dime a dozen. And maybe we took them for granted because we never thought they would one day disappear.
Sure, some movies that were released in the past decade fit the rom-com formula on paper, but few had the same impact as their predecessors did. The ones today are way more predictable and are designed for streaming platforms like Netflix and Prime Video rather than the big screen. Netflix Originals have become what Hallmark movies have always been: low-risk and shallow rather than complex and emotionally compelling.
This could all be due to an overall shift in the film industry’s priorities. In recent years, studios have moved away from mid-budget productions, the category where romantic comedies once thrived, because they simply don’t make as much money as large-scale franchise films.
That’s not to say there haven’t been notable exceptions. I personally really enjoyed Anyone But You, as did most people, partly because of its nostalgia for turn-of-the-century rom-coms. Romantic comedies have long borrowed from classic stories: Clueless reimagines Jane Austen’s Emma, and 10 Things I Hate About You is based on William Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew. Similarly, Anyone But You is inspired by Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing. The film’s success proves that audiences are interested in watching romantic comedies when given the chance to see them in theaters. If anything, the problem isn’t the genre itself, but the industry’s decision to sideline it.
Rom-coms aren’t outdated, they just haven’t been made with care and investment like they once did. When studios stop treating them like afterthoughts and actually put effort into them, audiences respond. We need to start seeing better romantic comedies where they belong: in theaters.