If modern romcoms aren’t sweeping you off your feet any more, you’re not the only one wondering where the magic went.
Romantic comedies are just not as good as they used to be, according to one of the stars of Love Actually.
Thomas Brodie-Sangster, who played lovestruck teenager Sam in Richard Curtis’s 2003 Christmas film, said the rise of streaming had led to “rushed”, cheaper productions, draining the genre of the spark it had in its 1990s heyday.
The actor, 35, told the Daily Telegraph that classic romcoms such as Love Actually were made in the pre-smartphone years – a “bygone era”.
He said: “It was a kind of simpler time, and maybe that is more romantic.
“And there were some greats, like Nancy Meyers and Nora Ephron, who did some brilliant stuff in the 90s: When Harry Met Sally, You’ve Got Mail, Sleepless in Seattle, they’re just brilliant films.
“Things kind of go around and come around, fashions change and, when they’re done well, a good romcom can be brilliant. I hope that they will come back around.”
Brodie-Sangster said the decline of big-screen romantic comedies was partly down to studios pouring money into action and superhero franchises such as Marvel and DC, with romcoms underperforming in comparison.
“So [romcoms] are more reserved for the streamers, perhaps, and maybe that’s changed the budgeting and the scale that they can do. When the volume goes up, the quality can – not necessarily always does – but can go down.”
Materialists, a romcom starring Dakota Johnson and Pedro Pascal, which was released in August, took about $108m (£82m) worldwide – far below the returns of late-90s and early-2000s hits.
Love Actually grossed more than $245m globally, while Notting Hill (1999) earned nearly $364m. The 2019 superhero epic Avengers: Endgame, by contrast, took $2.8bn.
Brodie-Sangster also said the romcom scripts he receives now feel “rushed”, because movie and TV writers feel “they need to tap into the zeitgeist of what’s happening at this moment immediately, otherwise the public is going to be on to something else”.
“They get greenlit for a certain period of time. Then they just have to send out whatever they’ve got to get some attention. And so often it’s just not very good.”
Brodie-Sangster said he enjoyed the recognition he receives for the role he played aged 13.
“It’s lovely to be associated with Christmas,” he said. “It’s not something I get bored of. It’s something I’m quite proud of and happy to have been a part of. I mean, love doesn’t really go out of date.”
