Unwritten or fully scripted? Glen Powell applauded his “Anyone But You” co-star Sydney Sweeney for orchestrating a marketing campaign for the hit romantic comedy that hinted at an alleged romance between the two leads.
It was straight out of the rom-com marketing days of yesteryear. And it really worked, thanks to her attractive co-stars and a little help (okay, a lot of help) from TikTok.
Sweeney, executive producer of the scantily clad Australia-set adaptation of Shakespeare's comedy “Much Ado About Nothing,” alluded to dating rumors in the run-up to Sony Pictures' December release about two people who love hate each other The speculation played out exactly as they intended, the stars told the New York Times, turning the “unseen” romantic comedy and its meager box office debut into a streaming bounty for Netflix, where it landed Wednesday as part of a licensing deal with Sony. .
“The two things you have to sell in a romantic comedy are fun and chemistry. “Sydney and I have a lot of fun together and we have a lot of effortless chemistry,” Powell told the NYT in an article published Tuesday. “People want to get what's on the screen off the screen and sometimes you just have to lean into it a little bit, and it worked great. “Sydney is very smart.”
Gossips ate up the lead actors' near-nude photos on set, the co-stars' flirtatious interviews and online banter, and their intimate glance exchanges during promotional appearances.
Sweeney remained (and remains) engaged to Jonathan Davino, who also executive produced the film. However, Powell broke up with his longtime girlfriend Gigi Paris amid speculation, further fueling interest in the forbidden romance between the two and their film.
The two even addressed the speculation in interviews: At one point, the “Top Gun: Maverick” star said the rumors seemed “disorienting and unfair,” while Sweeney said the speculation was “really harsh” on Powell, who loves. a lot. It turns out that Sweeney was directly behind the strategy.
“I was on every call. I was in group text chats. “I probably kept everyone in marketing and distribution at Sony awake at night because I couldn't stop coming up with ideas,” the “Euphoria” and “Madame Web” star told the media outlet. “I wanted to make sure that we had an active conversation with the audience while promoting this film, because at the end of the day, they are the ones who created the entire narrative.”
With a budget of $25 million, the film opened to a “disappointing” box office take of $8 million over Christmas weekend, director Will Gluck said. But the film benefited from word of mouth and online virality with its “eventization” of Powell’s character’s “serenity song” – Natasha Bedingfield’s 2004 “Unwriting” – and enjoyed a strong run in the weeks that followed. . It ultimately grossed around $218 million worldwide.
“It was totally organic,” Gluck told the Los Angeles Times in February. “We just started seeing all these TikToks of people having fun with the song. And once that song started playing, the box office started to increase. And then the TikToks and Instagrams started talking about the actual movie. It became something that everyone really wanted to do and not miss during the break.”
“It just became something that created a trend on TikTok,” Sweeney told the NYT, “and that's really what built the audience.”
