Will “Anyone But You” Spark A Rom-Com Renaissance?

When the first trailer for Anyone But You was released, I barely gave it any attention. It seemed like the same type of Wedding Date knock-off comedy which gluts the romance and comedy sections of most streaming services. Sure, Glen Powell is a hunk, but why not just re-watch Top Gun: Maverick?

But that was two months ago, and now the movie world is wondering how a moderate $6 million opening weekend turned into the first rom-com to gross over $200 million in years?

Ben (Glen Powell) and Bea (Sydney Sweeney) have a killer first date, but after a misunderstanding, they become each other’s worst enemies. This becomes a problem, though, when Bea’s sister Halle gets engaged to Ben’s friend Claudia, and they discover they’re both invited to the wedding. Desperate to get their family and friends off their backs, Ben and Bea decide to pretend they’re dating – but is the spark from their first date really gone?

Whether you think this enemies-to-lovers trope sounds like a winning plot or not, the statistics speak for themselves. Not only has Anyone But You made four times its initial projected earnings, but it has surpassed Leonardo DiCaprio’s Romeo + Juliet as the highest grossing Shakespeare adaptation of all time. Now production studios are scrambling over the million dollar question – Why? What about this new rom-com has struck a chord with audiences and breathed new life into the rom-com genre?

The Near Death of the Rom-Com in the 2010s

For decades, the rom-com was a staple of the summertime box office. Initially focusing on the teen rom-coms of the 1980s like Pretty in Pink or Say Anything, the genre expanded to rom-coms for adults with the release of When Harry Met Sally, starring Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal. When Harry Met Sally proved that simple love stories could make lots of money. These rom-coms told stories where girls could be affirmed in their femininity – encouraged in it, even – and where men could be admired for traditional male values like taking initiative and having the courage to do hard things.

The rom-com continued to be a reliable bet for production companies continuing into the early 2000s with hits such as How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, starring Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey, and 13 Going on 30, starring Jennifer Garner and Mark Ruffalo. The rom-com continued to be successful because it had a winning formula, and producers weren’t messing with it. Hire two attractive leads with real on-screen chemistry, set them in a somewhat believable scenario, and let the journey to true love play out for an engaged audience. 

But shortly after the 2010s began, the rom-com declined sharply in popularity. Part of this was due to the increasing popularity of franchises such as The Hunger Games and the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which called for more hardened, “strong female leads.” The more traditionally feminine leads of the rom-com were no longer considered realistic depictions of the “modern woman” and what she really wanted out of life.

Companies didn’t stop producing rom-coms, however. Following the popularity of comedies such as American Pie or Superbad, rom-coms began including larger quantities of raunchy content. Friends With Benefits showed a relationship between two friends who use each other for sex. Trainwreck follows a free-spirited woman who is avoiding monogamy at all costs. Additionally, newer rom-coms focused on telling stories with “increased diversity.” Whether it was the same-sex love story of Bros or the depiction of an older woman’s pursuit of a young man in No Hard Feelings, newer rom-coms have followed in this trend of telling more “modern” love stories that supposedly reflect a new generation which is uninterested in traditional romantic tropes.

The economic effects of these changes weren’t felt immediately, but when the Covid shutdowns sent audiences home and closed theaters, it soon became clear that audiences didn’t trust the rom-com genre for an evening of reliable fun anymore. The newer films were more focused on appealing to smaller subgroups, and the result was an increasingly small audience of viewers. In the years since the early 2000s, overall performance of rom-coms at the box office has dropped nearly 70%, forcing everyone to ask the same question: Do audiences still like to watch a good rom-com? 

The Secret to Anyone But You’s Success

That narrative has changed with the wild and unexpected success of Anyone But You, which has convinced the world that “the youths” love romantic comedies again. Just why has this particular film seen such a boom in popularity, especially since the film’s initial box office projection was not particularly strong? Some have speculated that it’s due to the remarkable chemistry between Powell and Sweeney, the kind that has fed rumors that the pair have been conducting an affair (just to be clear, they’ve confirmed they’re just friends).

Many have attributed the film’s slow-burn success to a TikTok trend related to one of the film’s songs, which reaped better results than most of the film’s initial advertising. At the beginning of Anyone But You, Natasha Richardson’s song “Unwritten” is revealed as Ben’s “serenity song” – what he listens to whenever he feels anxious. The song recurs several times throughout the film and plays during the film’s end credits as the cast dances to it. In the TikTok trend, moviegoers dance to the song as they leave the theater. The trend became a digital grassroots campaign that brought in new viewers after the film’s release and contributed to its growing success.

I think the film’s source material also contributed just as much to the film’s slow-burn success. While Anyone But You plays very fast and loose with the details of William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, it retains many of the core characters and scenes that have made it one of the Bard’s five most frequently performed plays. Despite this, the film’s initial advertising left out all mention of Anyone But You’s inspiration. Maybe it’s just me, but I would have run, not walked, into opening night if I had known this in advance, and I enjoyed the film even more after I discovered the fact. 

While I’m certain these reasons have contributed to Anyone But You’s success, I don’t think they explain the real reason people love Anyone But You. No TikTok trend, source material, or film star scandal can keep crowds coming back for a truly bad movie.

Take it from a skeptic who walked into the film ready to hate it – there’s the spirit of old-school rom-coms in this film, and that’s what speaks to its audiences. Anyone But You earns its R rating with a few scenes of nudity and raunchy jokes in the vein of more recent rom-coms, but the core of the film harkens back to the days when we could watch two beautiful people struggle to find love (just like we do) and make each other better when they did. Sweeney’s Bea is a girl who has dreamed of her wedding day her entire life. She's looking to reclaim her heart instead of meeting the world’s expectations for a woman; Powell’s Ben is a man searching for someone whom he can protect and be vulnerable with. When the pair has their meet cute, Bea is hilariously giddy. She has a sweet, feminine crush. They balance each other out in an incredible yin and yang way. We even learn at one point that Ben can't swim well, yet he jumps into the ocean to save Bea. They are flawed and realistic characters. The new “power couple of rom-coms” work because the relationship they depict speaks to a truth about men and women that our generation feels, even if they can’t always describe what they’re looking for. 

Is a Rom-Com Renaissance around the Corner?

So here’s the real question: Is Anyone But You poised to lead us into a new renaissance of the rom-com? Powell and Sweeney certainly hope so, and they’re already on the hunt for their next project. Like Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks or Julia Roberts and Richard Gere, a season of rom-com revival will require a couple with excellent on-screen chemistry, and Powell and Sweeney have that in spades.

But it’s about more than Powell and Sweeney’s on-screen chemistry, though. The last year of movies and television has a long list of movies and shows that are unapologetically girly: Barbie, The Summer I Turned Pretty, and the incredible success of Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour to name just a few. For the first time in a while, girls are comfortable being feminine again – in fact, they’re proud of it. This speaks to a generation of women who are ready to use their hearts, not just their heads, and who want to be defined by the way that they love, and not just the things they achieve. That kind of audience is the lifeblood of the rom-com, and if you’re asking me, I think they’re at the movies to stay.

Closing Thoughts

Anyone But You was expected to be yet another rom-com flop when it was released late last year. But the film’s reliance on traditional rom-com tropes – really masculine men and women who want more from life than a badass career – has helped lead it to wild success at the box office. Anyone But You has definitively shown production companies that audiences – including the mercurial Gen Z audience – don’t really want excessively raunchy, niche plots from their rom-coms. They want timeless tropes to speak of timeless love stories, and ultimately, that’s the kind of love story Anyone But You provides.

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