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Estelle Artus's avatar

This is so interesting - especially for me as a filmmaker currently making a 'Romance' movie.

I think the industry just realized that it's much easier to make an average thriller, drama, or action movie. If not great, it can still pass for it. No such thing with a romantic comedies. It's unwatchable when not great. Romance is simply a much harder genre.

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Matthew Prince's avatar

What type of Romantic film are you making? Comedy or Drama? Who is starring in it? Is it a Bridget Jones type movie? Those still seem to be marketable. Or is it a Romantic comedy aimed at Seniors? Is it going to be for the cinema, video on demand or sold to Sky Cinema, Netflix or Amazon Prime Video?

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Estelle Artus's avatar

I write about what I do on my Substack if you are interested.

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Matthew Prince's avatar

Comedy, especially American comedy is so subjective. 20-25 years ago, a lot of American comedy movies were popular with young audiences because there was a lot of physical humour, sexual insults and visual gags around alcohol, drugs & soft core nudity and society in the 2000s was still relaxed about these things...

Unfortunately (fortunately to some women and men) you just can't say or do certain things in modern movies because those producing & directing movies today (Gen Z / Young Millennials) are those people that would have been the butt of most of the jokes 20 years ago. Not only that, the actors and audiences have grown up...

The audience who watch movies today have so many different concepts of what is "funny" which usually means politically correct aka socially acceptable. To do the types of comedy movies that were made in the 90s and 00s, like American Pie, Old School, Anchorman and Road Trip in the 2020s, you would need to be an independent producer ready to push things to "18" on each film and face public criticism head on. Like going back to the 1980s Indie scene on horror, action and comedy: violence, nudity and bad taste humour...

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