‘Not a romcom-friendly era’: why Netflix backing out of Nancy Meyers project suggests romantic comedies starring A-listers like Scarlett Johansson may have had their day
- When Netflix balked at handing Nancy Meyers US$100 million-plus to make a romantic comedy, it showed the genre’s 1990s and 2000s heyday is long gone
- Films like What Women Want with stars like Mel Gibson were successes, but today, when ‘romance doesn’t have the same appeal’, studios are tightening their belts
On paper, Nancy Meyers’ ambitious in-the-works Netflix movie seemed to have all the ingredients of a classic Hollywood romantic comedy.
A semi-autobiographical plot about a filmmaking duo falling in and out of love; A-listers, including Scarlett Johansson, expected to star; and Meyers herself, known for box office hits including The Holiday and Something’s Gotta Give.
But the film’s ample budget – itself a throwback to the peak of the genre’s commercial powers in the 1990s and 2000s – proved too much for Netflix. The film was reportedly set to cost well more than US$100 million (HK$780 million) to produce, a scale normally seen in action spectacles, not meet-cutes.
Netflix backed out of the project last week, according to people in the know, after a disagreement over the budget between the filmmakers and the streaming giant became public.
The decision comes as streaming services, including Netflix, become more cautious with their content spending to satisfy investor pressure to increase profits. Services have recently cancelled previously renewed shows, pulled out of films and cut jobs to save money.