Yahoo Lifestyle Why Hollywood Keeps Sending Rom-Coms Like ‘Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy’ Straight to Streaming
In “Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy,” the neurotic, lovelorn heroine hasn’t just swapped cigarettes for Nicorette. She’s traded the big screen for Peacock, a second-tier streaming service where the franchise’s fourth entry will debut on Feb. 13.
“[People] will watch this one at home,” says Helen Fielding, the author who created Bridget Jones. “If you’re Bridget’s generation, it will be with a bottle of wine and a tub of ice cream. If you’re Gen Z, it will be with lots of minerals, potions and slippers. But it’s a good movie to watch on the sofa.”
More from Variety
Relegating “Mad About the Boy” to streaming signals how far the romantic comedy has fallen in the 24 years since Bridget first captured audiences’ hearts. When “Bridget Jones’s Diary” hit theaters in 2001, the genre was at its zenith, with Julia Roberts, Reese Witherspoon, Sandra Bullock and of course Bridget herself, Renée Zellweger, regularly populating marquees with their latest meet-cutes. But over the past decade and change, studios have gotten out of the rom-com game, at least theatrically. Now when Zellweger or Witherspoon (whose latest film, “You’re Cordially Invited,” debuted on Prime Video this month) fall in love on-screen, it’s usually a streaming service that’s paying for the affair.
“The bloom is off the rose of rom-coms,” says Paul Dergarabedian, Comscore’s senior media analyst. “There was a period in which they couldn’t miss. But then there were a number that were absolutely awful, and streaming changed things. Now you need spectacle to get audiences into theaters.”
By spectacle, Dergarabedian is referring to Marvel adventures or Christopher Nolan epics, the kind of special effects-heavy adventures that are best enjoyed in Imax or other premium formats. And he’s correct in suggesting the genre became overly formulaic, with the likes of 2017’s “Home Again,” 2018’s “I Feel Pretty” and 2019’s “Isn’t It Romantic” failing to approach the quality of an earlier generation of rom-coms. Even 2016’s “Bridget Jones’s Baby” bombed in the U.S., earning a measly $24.2 million. By comparison, the original earned $71 million domestically and the 2004 sequel generated $40 million.
That chilly reception convinced NBCUniversal to rethink its strategy for Bridget’s fourth cinematic adventure. “Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy” isn’t going straight to streaming everywhere. It’ll play in theaters at the international box office, where the series has been a consistent commercial smash. To wit: The third installment grossed nearly $200 million outside the U.S. For all three “Bridget” movies, overseas revenues have accounted for 79% to 89% of overall ticket sales.
“Mad About the Boy” cost $50 million to produce. With that price tag, the studio would need to spend $40 million to $50 million on global theatrical marketing fees, according to rival executives with knowledge of similar productions. That would require “Bridget Jones 4” to collect at least $40 million domestically to justify those expenditures. With that back-of-the-envelope math in mind, NBCUniversal greenlit the film for Peacock in the U.S. and a theatrical release in the rest of the world.
“It’s not one of those stories which you hear of ‘How dare they not release it? I’m so angry!’” says the film’s director, Michael Morris. “I would love it to be released everywhere, but I did know going in that this was going to be a Peacock release in the States.”
The economics of streaming are helping to keep rom-coms alive — and introducing a new generation to these movies. Without needing to spend the tens of millions required to market a big-screen offering, Amazon Prime Video backed Anne Hathaway’s “The Idea of You” and Netflix produced Amy Schumer’s “Kinda Pregnant,” knowing the combination of star power, humor and heart would stand out on the endless scroll of new releases.
“The threshold for what to make streaming-wise is lower than it is theatrically. And they don’t have to be super expensive,” says Alex Saks, a producer on “Kinda Pregnant,” “Book Club” and “It Ends With Us.” “The positive of streamers is the more of these movies we make, the more chances we have to make good ones.”
But fans of rom-coms hold out hope for a big-screen revival. And a few recent examples have bucked the trend and performed well in cinemas, such as 2018’s “Crazy Rich Asians,” which became a cultural touchstone for Asian American moviegoers, and “Anyone but You,” which brought together rising stars Glen Powell and Sydney Sweeney, drawing in the TikTok generation in the process. Jennifer Lawrence’s R-rated “No Hard Feelings,” Bullock and Channing Tatum’s “The Lost City” and Roberts and George Clooney’s “Ticket to Paradise” also leveraged the appeal of those A-listers to satisfying box office returns. There were some duds, like Jennifer Lopez’s “Marry Me,” which debuted simultaneously on Peacock, and Billy Eichner’s “Bros.” But that short list nearly encompasses the entire run of theatrical rom-coms over the past half-decade.
“At some point, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy,” says Scott Meslow, author of “From Hollywood With Love: The Rise and Fall (and Rise Again) of the Romantic Comedy.” “If you don’t release these movies in theaters and send them to streaming services, how do you know they won’t work?”
Meslow thinks that people could fall back in love with the genre if it’s once again presented as theatrical propositions, instead of disposable streaming movies.
“In five years, will people talk about ‘Hot Frosty’ like they talk about the first ‘Bridget Jones’?” he says. “People are charmed by these stories if they’re unique and well made instead of just something that pops up at the top of the Netflix algorithm.”
Alex Ritman and Ellise Shafer contributed to this report.
Best of Variety
'Blue Velvet,' 'Chinatown' and 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas' Arrive on 4K in June
'House of the Dragon': Every Character and What You Need to Know About the 'Game of Thrones' Prequel
Sign up for Variety's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
