Romantic comedies were the dominant form of romantic movies in the late-'90s and early-2000s, and we could not have enough! Whether it was Heath Ledger singing on top of a stadium or Adam Sandler singing to Drew Barrymore on a plane, we all miss the rom-com! Well, have romantic comedies disappeared? The answer to that is... kind of?
Romantic Comedies have been around since the beginning of narrative cinema. The genre started strong in the 1930s and was popular until the 2010s. Since that time, however, the genre barely changed or adapted. The classic formula of "boy-meets-girl, will-they-won't-they, they break up, and then a grand gesture gets them back together" became tired in the last decade. With the rise of streaming and competition for movie theaters, fewer and fewer studios started releasing rom-coms. With big-budget superheroes dominating the theaters, the romantic comedy has died down. No studios want to risk losing money over films that aren't big office draws, which means fewer and fewer comedies and romantic comedies are being made.
The peak of the rom-com era was from the '90s to the early-2000s with incredible films like 10 Things I Hate About You, You've Got Mail, When Harry Met Sally, Clueless, Enchanted, and more. These films, however, were very homogenous and left little room for diversity in their time. There are also no more stars today who are box office draws for romantic comedies like Matthew McConaughey, Hugh Grant, or Julia Roberts.
However, the rom-com did not die! The genre has found new popularity over streaming with movies like To All The Boys I Loved Before, TV shows like "Heartstopper", and K-dramas! The genre is alive and well on streaming platforms and with K-dramas. In the last few years, there have been successful romantic comedies that have reinvented the tropes. Films like The Big Sick, Love, Simon, and Crazy Rich Asians all have adapted the genre for the better, and upcoming rom-coms like Anyone But You and The Other Zoey show that the rom-com is making a comeback!
As we move into the future, the hope is to start having more romantic comedies today that switch up the formula and have more representation!