Netflix Hasn’t Quite Saved the Rom-Com Yet—But It Could

Netflix’s “Summer of Love” saved the rom-com. Right? After all, To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before was a huge success—so huge, in fact, Netflix made an exception to its policy of secrecy when it comes to viewership numbers, and announced the film was “one of its most viewed original films ever with strong repeat viewing.” Going further, the company revealed (albeit vaguely) that over 80 million people watched one of its original 2018 rom-coms (Set It Up, Us and Them, Like Father, The Kissing Booth, To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before, and Sierra Burgess is a Loser, to name a few.) It seemed hard to deny that the romantic comedy—a genre that, ironically, hadn’t seen much love from moviegoers since 2009’s The Proposal—were back.

Yet that declaration has yet to be reflected in theatrical releases. Last year’s Crazy Rich Asians was an undeniable success—the sixth highest grossing rom-com of all time—but last weekend, Long Shot, a new romantic comedy starring Seth Rogen and Charlize Theron, didn’t carry the momentum—it fell short of $10 million in its domestic box opening weekend. Avengers: Endgame is certainly to blame for a lot of that: The Marvel movie pummeled everything in its path for the second weekend in a row, and is now almost definitely en route to surpassing Avatar for the highest global box office of all time ($2.7 billion).

Still, Avengers or no Avengers, it’s not immediately obvious when Long Shot—which had all the star power and critical acclaim to be the next big romantic comedy—should have timed its release instead. Summer is traditionally the best time for comedies, but with the rise of franchise films, there’s hardly room to spare. May is booked up with Pokemon Detective Pikachu, John Wick: Chapter 3, Aladdin and Godzilla: King of the Monsters. June’s on lock with Dark Phoenix, Men in Black International, and Toy Story 4. July’s got Spider-Man: Far from Home and The Lion King. (Come to think of it, if I were Empress of Movie Releases, I would have slotted Long Shot in at the end of July—but I have a feeling Rogen was being kind to his buddy Kumail Nanjiani, who has an action film coming out then.)

In an era where recognizable names like “Pikachu” and “Aladdin” are almost guaranteed to sell tickets overseas, original films like Long Shot get shoved to the side. That’s a shame, because I liked Long Shot. Nearly every joke landed, Rogen and Theron’s chemistry was electric, and June Diane Raphael killed it. There was even—in my least favorite part of the film—an explosion, possibly because director Jonathan Levine knows how hard it is to get audiences out of their homes to see a boring ol’ romance.

Netflix, of course, is never worried about getting people out of their homes, and that’s where the company has a distinct advantage in ushering in the rom-com renaissance. Other streaming sites have seen similar successes: Amazon Studios’ The Big Sick was the most successful romantic comedy of 2017, an independent Sundance film that made $56 million worldwide on a rumored budget of $5 million. That one, which Nanjiani wrote with his wife Emily Gordon, is an interesting example, as it moved to streaming immediately after a five-month theatrical run, where it became one of Prime Video’s most-streamed original movies of 2017.

That said, the ever-looming Disney+ launches in November, meaning that pretty soon, all those superhero and franchise films will once again be competing, full-force, with the streaming originals. (To be fair, Disney+ has original films planned, too, but so far none that could be classified as pure “rom-coms.”) And thanks to Netflix’s shady numbers policy, it remains unclear exactly how much money Noah Centineo is making for the company. To completely misquote Justin Timberlake from The Social Network: 80 million streams isn’t cool. You know what’s cool? 2.7 billion dollars of cash money, baby. (This is how I imagine Hollywood executives speak.)

Without those metrics, it’s hard to measure Netflix’s success in bringing back the rom-com. A Summer of Love 2.0 would help, and it’s sort of on its way: The Perfect Date, a less-beloved Centineo film, was recently revealed to be the second-most watched title in April in the U.K., while Someone Great, starring Gina Rodriguez and Lakeith Stanfield, was the fifth.  Always Be My Maybe, an upcoming rom-com starring Ali Wong and Randall Park, looks promising, and To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before 2, which is slated for 2020, will almost definitely be a hit. Does that mean a new age of rom-coms will be upon us—one that may actually translate to those money-making theatrical releases? That remains to be determined.

Stream To All the Boys I've Love Before on Netflix