Kate Hudson Exposes A Huge Rom-Com Problem - And A Marvel Star Wants To Fix It
It's not hard to see that the heyday of big romantic comedies seems to be behind us. From the Nora Ephron-led era of "When Harry Met Sally..." and "You've Got Mail" to the onslaught of romcoms in the aughts like "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days," "Bridget Jones' Diary," and "13 Going on 30," audiences used to be able to catch a new romantic comedy pretty frequently on the big screen. Longtime genre star Kate Hudson thinks she has an answer.
As Hudson told the co-hosts on ABC's daily talk show "The View" (per People Magazine), "It's hard to get male movie stars to make rom-coms. As long as we can get more Marvel guys to like, you know, 'Hey, come to a rom-com!', I think that that's a big part of the formula too." Hudson isn't wrong; while stars like Matthew McConaughey and Mark Ruffalo used to be romantic comedy regulars, both have moved on, with Ruffalo actually doing so as the Marvel Cinematic Universe's Hulk. That said, one MCU star did reach out to Hudson through social media about this idea ... and they've even worked together before. Dave Bautista is game to appear in a romantic comedy alongside Hudson, and he reached out pretty quickly to let her know.
Paging Kate Hudson — a major Marvel star might be interested in doing a romcom
On an Instagram post from The Hollywood Reporter about Hudson's comments, Dave Bautista wrote, "Kate!!!" with a hand-raising emoji. (Hilariously, "Vanderpump Rules" legend Jax Taylor also weighed in on the post, saying, "enough marvel movies we need more rom coms and comedy's [sic].")
Bautista — who has been vocal about putting his days as Drax the Destroyer in the Marvel Cinematic Universe firmly in his rearview mirror — worked with Hudson on Rian Johnson's second "Knives Out" murder mystery, "Glass Onion," which was met with commercial and critical acclaim when it was released in late 2022. The wrestler-turned-actor has certainly been spreading his wings as a performer lately; after working with Johnson and Hudson, he starred in M. Night Shyamalan's 2023 thriller "Knock at the Cabin," lent his voice to the English dub of Hayao Miyazaki's latest animated masterpiece "The Boy and the Heron," and will reprise his role as Glossu Rabban in "Dune: Part Two" after working with director Denis Villeneuve on the first movie in 2021.
Bautista has serious range as an actor, and if he's willing to join Kate Hudson in a romantic comedy eventually, it feels like audiences would wholeheartedly embrace that choice.
Kate Hudson also thinks the best romantic comedies have one big thing in common
Dave Bautista's willingness to appear in a romantic comedy notwithstanding, Kate Hudson did point out that another thing is, perhaps, lacking in modern romantic comedies ... and that's iconic writers. To be fair to writers working today, being compared to Nora Ephron is perhaps too high of a bar, and Hudson did specifically namecheck her as one of the best romantic comedy writers of all time.
"If you look at the classic rom-coms or movies that last forever — 'cause they do, they're the ones that last forever; people go back and back — they had the best writers," Hudson told the ladies of "The View." There are definitely people out there writing solid rom-coms these days; Aline Brosh McKenna, Will Gluck, and Katie Silberman are just a few of the names attached to some of the great romantic comedies of the modern era like "The Devil Wears Prada," "Easy A," and "Set It Up." That said, Hudson had a caveat ... and it's an important one.
"So it's more about how the studios are investing in the talents," Hudson clarified, and on this point, she's absolutely correct. Studios are spending their money on existing intellectual property and enormous comic book movies these days while fewer and fewer solid romantic comedies find their way into production. Perhaps if Hudson and Bautista can put their considerable weight behind a new project, they could start the next wave of great rom-coms.