\n<\/p>\n
As Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell promoted their romantic comedy, \u201cAnyone but You,\u201d<\/a> last year, life appeared to be imitating art: The co-stars posed cheek to cheek<\/a> while sightseeing in Australia. Powell dipped<\/a> a gleeful Sweeney in his arms. Sweeney cast longing gazes<\/a> up at Powell on red carpets. The pair flirted and giggled<\/a> in interviews.<\/p>\n When Powell and his long-term girlfriend broke up<\/a>, and Sweeney remained engaged to her fianc\u00e9, Jonathan Davino (an executive producer of \u201cAnyone but You\u201d), rumors of an illicit offscreen relationship between the two actors took hold.<\/p>\n The speculation played out, the stars said, exactly as they intended.<\/p>\n \u201cThe two things that you have to sell a rom-com are fun and chemistry. Sydney and I have a ton of fun together, and we have a ton of effortless chemistry,\u201d Powell said in an interview. \u201cThat\u2019s people wanting what\u2019s on the screen off the screen, and sometimes you just have to lean into it a bit \u2014 and it worked wonderfully. Sydney is very smart.\u201d<\/p>\n Sweeney, who is also an executive producer through her Fifty-Fifty Films company, said she was intimately involved with the marketing strategy on the Columbia Pictures film, including, perhaps, fanning those headline-generating<\/a> flames.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cI was on every call. I was in text group chats. I was probably keeping everybody over at Sony marketing and distribution awake at night because I couldn\u2019t stop with ideas,\u201d she said. \u201cI wanted to make sure that we were actively having a conversation with the audience as we were promoting this film, because at the end of the day, they\u2019re the ones who created the entire narrative.\u201d<\/p>\n The R-rated romance follows Bea (Sweeney) and Ben (Powell), who share a night that ends badly and are then thrust together at a destination wedding in Australia, where Ben\u2019s friend and Bea\u2019s sister are getting married. The film is based loosely on Shakespeare\u2019s \u201cMuch Ado About Nothing\u201d and is full of bawdy zingers, grand gestures and sun-dappled scenery.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019ve got to get the ingredients in the meal just right: the story, the cast, the filmmakers, the chemistry, the ending,\u201d said Tom Rothman, chairman and chief executive of Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group, which includes Columbia. He added that the execution of a romantic comedy in particular \u201cis a delicate task. So, if you\u2019re going to make one and go for it theatrically, it better be good.\u201d<\/p>\n Critics were divided on \u201cAnyone but You,\u201d and it had an anemic start at the box office. It took in about $8 million over the long Christmas weekend against its $25 million budget, and opened in fifth place behind the latest \u201cAquaman\u201d and \u201cWonka.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cI kept my expectations low and, in retrospect, not low enough,\u201d the director Will Gluck said. \u201cThe first week was disappointing.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n But then something unusual happened: The audience for \u201cAnyone but You\u201d grew in its second and third weeks, and the film remained in the Top 5 at the U.S. box office each weekend through the end of January, thanks in part to multiple viewings<\/a> by younger audiences. Sales also surged overseas, even in non-English-language markets, which are notoriously difficult<\/a> for Hollywood comedies to crack.<\/p>\n Sony kept the film in U.S. theaters through February, and by the time \u201cAnyone but You\u201d arrives on Netflix this week as part of Sony\u2019s licensing deal<\/a> with the streamer, the rom-com will have grossed more than $218 million worldwide.<\/p>\n While Rothman said that Sony \u201cnever really subscribed to the notions of the punditocracy that the rom-com was dead\u201d at the box office, the studio put only a single, low-budget romantic comedy (\u201cThe Broken Hearts Gallery\u201d) into wide release between 2016 and 2022.<\/p>\n Here are three takeaways from the film\u2019s success.<\/p>\n The film\u2019s journey began in earnest in early 2022, when Sweeney, a star of \u201cEuphoria\u201d and \u201cImmaculate,\u201d<\/a> was actively seeking rom-com scripts to act in and produce. She and the producer Jeff Kirschenbaum came across one by Ilana Wolpert<\/a>, a screenwriter best known at the time for \u201cHigh School Musical: The Musical: The Series.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIlana took such a cool, modern twist on Shakespeare, I felt like I was reading an early 2000s rom-com,\u201d Sweeney said of the script. \u201cI loved wanting to be kissed in the rain, wanting to fall in love once I finished reading the script, wanting to cry, laugh, feeling all the feels.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Sweeney spent months meeting with potential lead actors and had narrowed it down to two or three others before meeting Powell at the MTV Movie & TV Awards. After a follow-up video call with him, she said she was convinced the actor, best known then for \u201cTop Gun: Maverick,\u201d \u201chad all the chops\u201d to play Ben.<\/p>\n The stars then approached Gluck, whose credits include \u201cEasy A\u201d and \u201cFriends With Benefits\u201d at Sony, to direct and revise the script as they shopped it to studios. Within a matter of weeks, Sony snapped up the project \u2014 a feat Sweeney partly attributed to her \u201cbuilding a great relationship\u201d with the studio by acting in the superhero movie \u201cMadame Web.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSydney is a force of nature,\u201d Rothman said, adding that Sony is lucky to be in business with her on future projects, which include a new \u201cBarbarella.\u201d<\/a> <\/p>\n Ahead of the release of \u201cAnyone but You,\u201d Sweeney said she pushed Sony to take \u201ca leap of faith\u201d and release a viral promo clip of her and Powell whispering raunchy \u201cASMR pickup lines\u201d<\/a> that has since been viewed nearly 25 million times on TikTok. And after the film hit theaters, Sweeney noticed a handful of TikToking moviegoers lip-syncing<\/a> and dancing<\/a> to the Natasha Bedingfield song \u201cUnwritten\u201d<\/a> \u2014 which plays a key role<\/a> in the film \u2014 and fueled the trend by sharing their clips with her nearly 20 million Instagram followers.<\/p>\n \u201cI was like, this is really interesting, so I saved that and I storied that,\u201d Sweeney said, referring to Instagram\u2019s Stories feature. \u201cBefore I knew it, I was doing it every single night. It just spiraled into this thing that created a TikTok trend, and that is truly what built the audience.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n For Dermot Mulroney, the veteran actor who plays a supporting role as Bea\u2019s father in \u201cAnyone but You,\u201d being part of the film\u2019s success is a full-circle moment. He was in his early 30s when he starred in the 1997 rom-com \u201cMy Best Friend\u2019s Wedding,\u201d<\/a> which made almost $300 million globally against its $35 million budget. Yet, Mulroney, who played the object of Julia Roberts and Cameron Diaz\u2019s affections in that hit, found he had few opportunities in the immediate aftermath.<\/p>\n \u201cI was sitting there ready for the gift with purchase that was supposed to come along with being in a popular movie, and instead, I probably didn\u2019t work for a year,\u201d Mulroney said. \u201cI chalked it up to me being so tiny on the poster, the little guy on the cake. I thought, gosh, you guys, if you\u2019d made me a little bigger, maybe I could have gotten a job.\u201d<\/p>\n But Mulroney, now 60, said he was still approached daily by fans of the film \u2014 decades after its release \u2014 some of whom tell him they grew up watching it with their grandmothers.<\/p>\n The night before filming began on \u201cAnyone but You\u201d in Sydney, Gluck gathered the cast to watch \u201cMy Best Friend\u2019s Wedding\u201d at a Sony screening room. It was the first time Mulroney had seen it since its premiere; afterward he spoke to the room, and Powell in particular, about the unexpected weight of being in a theatrical rom-com.<\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t want him to do what I did, which was minimize how important something is that might feel a little light or a little fluff when you\u2019re doing it,\u201d Mulroney said. \u201c\u2018What these movies mean to people,\u2019 I told Glen, \u2018will last for decades.\u2019 It will last until after you\u2019re gone in a way that maybe the other cool stuff he\u2019s doing won\u2019t. It has a different kind of absorption.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Powell took the message to heart and also relished the chance to embrace the goofier aspects of playing the love interest in a romantic comedy.<\/p>\n \u201cFor some reason, the rom-com male lead has just been reduced to a brooding male model that occasionally smiles at the girl across the room,\u201d Powell said. \u201cBut for me, if you\u2019re a male and you leave a rom-com looking cool, you\u2019ve totally messed it up.\u201d<\/p>\n Gluck agreed. \u201cWe were very conscious of making it feel like a huge movie with big production and big escapism and big moments and big acts of love,\u201d he said, adding, \u201ca lot of life\u2019s moments are cheesy and cringe.\u201d<\/p>\n Gluck said he has had talks with Sweeney and Powell about reteaming on another film. And while Rothman said there has been \u201cnothing official\u201d discussed at the studio level, he would prefer to see the actors pair up again in an unrelated romantic comedy, similar to Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan\u2019s filmography together.<\/p>\n \u201cNot that we wouldn\u2019t consider a sequel \u2014 obviously, we would,\u201d Rothman said. \u201cBut I think maybe the healthiest opportunity is another original starring the two of them.\u201d<\/p>\n Mulroney said he and Roberts have discussed ways they could reunite in another rom-com. \u201cI\u2019d give anything to go around again with Julia,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re trying, for sure. We\u2019ll do whatever anybody can get up and going.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Still, Gluck is skeptical that the success of \u201cAnyone but You\u201d will herald a new wave of theatrical rom-coms. (Universal recently announced<\/a> that its fourth \u201cBridget Jones\u201d film will go straight to Peacock in the United States next year.)<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s one thing I know for certain: Nothing will be learned from this,\u201d Gluck said. \u201cI hope I\u2019m wrong, but it\u2019s not like, in six months get ready for a rom-com revolution every weekend. I still think people are a little hesitant to figure out why it worked.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nThe actors contributed off-camera, too.<\/h2>\n
Rom-com history matters.<\/h2>\n
Don\u2019t expect Hollywood to learn these lessons.<\/h2>\n