After taking a quick look at the United States DVD Sales Chart for Week Ending September 6, 2020, it confirmed what last week’s article had described, with remakes, trilogies and general revamping of old and overdone ideas. With DVD titles like The Aristocats, Fast and Furious and Sonic the Hedgehog, it could be the best sellers list from a decade or two ago. It’s such a shame that creativity is being squashed so much that we are in a rehash of our own making.
Although who can blame them when a glance at the Box Office Records tells a similar story. The best sellers are trilogies, Disney, re-makes and continuations of brands. It leaves little room for new and original ideas.
A quick check of relationship advice movies shows that interest has been slowly declining since 2011, although Emma at the start of 2020 did well. Many of the more recent statistics don’t show the original production costs but the costs would be lower than on an action or sci-fi film.
Think Like A Man Too (2014) was the last Relationship advice film I can see where they made a profit and That Awkward Moment (2014) also did well. The former is interesting because it is a sequel and based on a book (although I have not seen either!) so it fits into the film companies interests in branding, sequels and using literary works to make films from.
This research seems to suggest that viewers have grown bored of the genre in 2020 but I would suggest that if the main audience of RomComs (and therefore films including relationship advice) are women, then this drop in interest could be indicative of these films needing a new direction suitable for the future generation of aware and confident women who no longer subscribe to the past’s family values and marriage ideals.
