Don’t Fall Too Hard for Romcoms’ Return, There’s a Twist!
I analyze the genre’s challenges, where love is winning onscreen and how to rebuild it for new audiences
I offer analysis for paid subscribers every other Thursday. I wrote about 7 sleeper hits of the Streaming Wars; why animation continues to make bank and IP dominates the box office; and the audience chart every exec should obsess over.
Any good romantic comedy (romcom from here on out) follows a fairly well-worn story arc. The two love interests usually bump into each other (the meet-cute) and begin a whirlwind romance (often with some hijinks). Midway through, protagonists encounter some obstacles (and more hijinks ensue!), but eventually the lovebirds overcome their challenges (usually with more hijinks) and live happily ever after. (No more hijinks at this point, unless there is a sequel.)
To be clear, that’s the rough outline for American films. Shakespeare’s romances had much more tragic endings.
Funnily, we see that same narrative play out in the “genre hype cycle,” a term I just coined (you’re welcome). In Hollywood’s quest for the “next big thing,” at first everyone falls in love with a new genre (or a new take on an old genre). Then everyone goes all in on it at the same time, leading to over-saturation and audience burnout. And everyone pulls back. Of course, no genre ever really dies, but unlike the romcom, they may not thrive after the fall. So perhaps the genre hype cycle is more akin to the Shakespearean tragedy than the American romcom.
Take sports docuseries. A few years back, based on the success of Netflix’s Formula 1 show Drive to Survive — and a fairly-well-debunked-but-oft-repeated narrative that it was largely responsible for Formula 1’s rise in viewership — the town fell in love with sports docuseries. Eventually, the industry realized what I’ve been telling them for years: Sports docuseries don’t do as well as their hype. As such, the industry has cut their orders by half this year! I’d put foreign TV shows into the same hype-overhype-correction bucket. One could tell the same story for superhero films, starting in 2008.
I’m wondering if romcoms are about to enter a similar hype cycle. As dissected in this discussion by The Ankler podcast crew last week, romcoms seem definitely back on the buying menu, both in film and TV, as we’ve seen an uptick in new orders from studios and streamers.
So let’s look at the data. What does it say about this timeless genre and its future? And how can Hollywood innovate to make this kind of storytelling reach more audiences and not spam fans with too much and become, as the kids would say, a try-hard?
In today’s newsletter, I’ve got charts that are very instructive about what is happening with the audience.
I also will…
💝 Identify four clear opportunities to keep the spark alive in romcoms
💓 Plot the genre’s success on streaming, and which platform dominates
💘 Reveal where romance and romcom are crushing it now and reaching huge audiences
🫶🏼 Share some top-performing romantic sleeper hits on streaming, and the kind of show streamers should be making more of
❤️🩹 Take a hard look at the box office performance of romcoms and whether the buying spree makes sense
💔 Pinpoint when romcoms’ fate turned and how it affected development
💖 Look at the star strategy behind upcoming romcom swings
💗 Highlight new creators and platforms making the genre their own
