You know, for someone my age or a bit younger, it's almost impossible to imagine good romantic comedies coming out on a semi-regular basis. There just hasn't been one since I've been cognizant of movies. I mean, audiences actually put effort into enjoying 50 First Dates and Hitch for that very reason. They desperately wanted to meet the genre halfway. Zooey Deschanel breaks hearts and sells movies/shows/albums because her life seems like some kind of rom-com. What a joke. Give me another Intolerable Cruelty at the very least, which is clever in a sort of obvious way. Give me Clueless. It's a crying shame, because romantic comedies are "easy listening" in a way not approached by anything currently except the vapid Marvel movies. A good romantic comedy has staying power. /opinion or whatever. I just like smart movies and lately films have to pick only two out of romance, comedy and intelligence.There's a cycle to everything. One of my friends pointed out that the landscape is ripe for a decent, well-written, well-acted, well-directed romantic comedy because we haven't had one in almost a decade. It's all The Hangover and Bridesmaids and other crass bullshit that is completely without any heart.
A guess: Rom coms can't be "event" movies. They aren't "must sees." Now that the average movie release, with P&A, costs $100m, there isn't any way to get people to go out to see a movie that isn't a "must see." You can make a $150m sci fi epic that everybody has to go see. You just can't make a $150m romcom. Something I've been dealing with personally is the propagation of tiny little movies that just go directly to Netflix. I think we'll see more of that as the studio system continues to lock out anything that isn't a nine-figure pre-existing property. It'll be a while, though; it's really tough to make a decent movie for under $300k of a quality that will be accepted by the average audience.
It's happening with tv shows, so I assume movies are next -- but I don't know how the money works there. I mean, what do a few episodes of Arrested Development cost compared to an independent film? What exactly can Netflix afford? Not a movie with George Clooney in it, surely. And until then it'll be a limited market. (Hell, maybe Netflix can afford that shit -- I saw a statistic bandied about a while ago that claimed that any given evening X percentage of bandwidth is being used on Netflix streaming, and it was an insane number.)Something I've been dealing with personally is the propagation of tiny little movies that just go directly to Netflix.
It's nothing compared to porn and spam. Netflix's bandwidth is high, but considering their traffic rides on Amazon's servers, it's hard to say for sure. As to the rest of it, read this.