How Anyone But You Became a Box-Office Success

Just before the romantic comedy film Anyone But You was released theatrically on the 2023 Christmas box-office weekend, co-writer and director Will Gluck jokingly predicted that Anyone But You would be the last romantic comedy to be released by a major studio. Gluck’s sarcastic prediction seemed to be proven correct in the film’s opening weekend, where the film grossed an unspectacular $6 million in its first three days of domestic release. The $6 million opening seemed especially underwhelming since Anyone But You, which carried a relatively modest production cost of $25 million, debuted alongside the supposed blockbuster holiday releases Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom and Migration.

However, instead of subsequently dropping at the box office, Anyone But You grossed $8.7 million in its second weekend of domestic release, followed by $9.7 million in its third weekend. Not since the 2017 biographical musical drama film The Greatest Showman had a Christmas release experienced such a reversal of fortune at the box office. Moreover, Anyone But You has never finished higher than fourth at the domestic box office on any weekend throughout its theatrical run.

Beyond content and execution, the enduring box-office success of Anyone But You is attributable to a fateful confluence of elements, including the emerging stardom and magnetic on-screen chemistry of leads Glen Powell and Sydney Sweeney and pent-up audience demand for theatrical romantic comedy films that recall the romantic comedy glory period of the 1990s and 2000s.

Glen Powell and Sydney Sweeney Have Sizzling On-Screen Chemistry

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With Anyone But You, Glen Powell and Sydney Sweeney provide clear evidence of how romantic comedy films depend on the leads’ attractiveness, chemistry, and sheer likability. The palpable screen chemistry that exists between Powell and Sweeney in the movie is magnified by the excitement of watching two performers who are developing into major stars seemingly right before our eyes.

In Anyone But You, Powell and Sweeney play Ben and Bea, a star-crossed romantic pair whose initial mutual attraction gives way to anger through a misunderstanding. After separating, Ben and Bea are fatefully reunited for the wedding of Bea’s sister and Ben’s best friend in Australia, where the bickering Bea and Ben reluctantly agree to pretend to be a couple to make the event go smoother.

Despite the inherent predictability of the film’s plot, Anyone But You succeeds primarily because of the genuine sense of satisfaction that results from Ben and Bea’s inevitable reconciliation. Ben and Bea’s relationship seems so genuine that many audiences have speculated that Powell and Sweeney must have fallen in love in real life. Regardless, it’s hardly surprising that Powell and Sweeney have expressed a desire to reunite in another film.

Anyone But You Became a Word-of-Mouth Worldwide Hit

Anyone But You has presently grossed approximately $88 million at the domestic box office and $120 million overseas for a current worldwide total of approximately $212 million. Given its $25 million production cost, Anyone But You has emerged as one of the most profitable films to be released during the 2023 holiday box-office season.

In contrast, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, which carried a marketing cost of between $100 million and $150 million and a production cost of more than $200 million, failed to achieve profitability in its theatrical run despite grossing more than $430 million at the worldwide box office.

While distributor Sony adopted a soft-launch approach with the marketing of Anyone But You, it nonetheless became a viral social media sensation upon its release through the video hosting service TikTok, where moviegoers inundated the service with videos of themselves reenacting the film’s closing credit sequence, in which cast members dance to and sing bits of the 2004 song “Unwritten” by Natasha Bedingfield. The TikTok videos became so popular that many theatrical audiences began dancing and singing to the closing credit sequence in theaters.

There was a direct correlation between the TikTok video explosion and the second-weekend boost that Anyone But You experienced at the box office, both domestically and overseas. Moreover, the box-office increase that resulted from the TikTok explosion has laid waste to the long-held belief that today’s younger audiences will only support romantic comedy films through the streaming realm.

Anyone But You Became a Cure for Blockbuster Fatigue

The success of Anyone But You should inspire Hollywood studios to reinvest in the romantic comedy genre, which was a vital part of the Hollywood studio system in the 1990s and 2000s, with the hit romantic comedy films Hitch, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, Pretty Woman, Sleepless in Seattle, among others.

When the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) launched in 2008 with Iron Man, this heralded the demise of the romantic comedy genre. In 2017, not a single studio romantic comedy film was released theatrically. Before Anyone But You, the last studio-wide romantic comedy theatrical release was the 2022 romantic comedy film Ticket to Paradise, starring George Clooney and Julia Roberts, which grossed nearly $170 million at the worldwide box office.

Now that superhero fatigue seems to have firmly taken hold with audiences, the success of Anyone But You represents a golden opportunity for the romantic comedy genre to fill this void and regain its commercial footing in Hollywood, especially if Anyone But You marks the beginning of an enduring on-screen romantic partnership between Glen Powell and Sydney Sweeney. Anyone But You is available to rent on iTunes, Prime Video, Google Play, and YouTube.