The Depressing Reason Why 'How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days' Would Never Have Been Made Today
How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days may be one of many beloved rom-com feature films of the late 1990s and early 2000s, but movies like this are now all but extinct.
The past two decades have experienced a shift from major movie studios making romantic comedies to lower-budget streaming services churning out similar types of content. While many rom-com fans can get their fix on cable platforms like Lifetime and Hallmark, rom-com feature films like How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, attached to big Hollywood names won’t be coming to a theater near you anytime soon.
The decline has been attributed to a number of factors, including an increased focus by Hollywood studios on larger-budget superhero blockbusters and a lack of fresh ideas beyond sequels and reboots.
Rom-coms like ‘How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days’ come down to money
Actor Colin Egglesfield, who starred in the rom-com Something Borrowed explained why rom-com feature films essentially died out. “I think it’s a combination of the perfect storm of Netflix coming out, people building better and nicer home theater systems,” he told Showbiz Cheat Sheet in a 2020 interview. “And the number of people going to movie theaters started to go down right around when Netflix really started to take off.”
“There were so many amazing shows,” he said. “TV series that were starting to film like on HBO. And obviously Netflix and Cinemax and Showtime. A lot of the A-list actors who were movie stars started to do television. And [producers] just couldn’t justify putting up the kind of money of what it cost to make Something Borrowed or like even like a Pretty Woman or a How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days.”
Adding, “The films in between that $10 million to $100 million range just kind of evaporated overnight because the return at the box office just isn’t what it used to be.”
Kate Hudson, who starred in How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, also starred alongside Egglesfield in Something Borrowed. Hudson made a name for herself in the rom-com space early in her career. But, like many actors, she shifted to other avenues like action. Hudson most recently starred in the Knives Out film series, Glass Onion.
Egglesfield said actors had to shift along with the work. He too recently starred in the action thriller, 100 Days to Live. “So it’s either these gigantic tentpole superhero films or these smaller independent films where they ask actors to work for scale,” he explained. “Because the quality of the material is awesome and great and compelling for an actor.”
“Unfortunately, we gotta pay bills, too,” he said. “So that’s led to a lot of actors, obviously, to work on television and it just it’s really sad because, man, I miss romantic comedies. I miss that genre. There are so many great films like romantic comedies from the ’90s and early 2000s that we just don’t really see anymore.”
While beloved rom-com films like How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days or Something Borrowed are unlikely to see a sequel, there may be a glimmer of hope for rom-com features. George Clooney and Julia Roberts’ Ticket to Paradise had a respectable box office showing, which could signal the return (maybe) of the rom-com feature. The film premiered at the box office and is currently offered on the Peacock, Apple TV and Prime Video streaming platform.
In November Ticket to Paradise generated a respectable $163 million at the global box, Collider reports. Produced on a $60 million budget, the return on the film is considered to be a win. However, the film received mixed reviews, seemingly popular with the audience, but not so much with reviewers.
More is to come this year. Shotgun Wedding starring Jennifer Lopez and Josh Duhamel hits Prime Video on Jan. 27. Plus, Reese Witherspoon and Ashton Kutcher’s Your Place or Mine will be streaming on Netflix in February.
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