Theatrical Romance Down 75% in 20 Years, SDCC Panel Warns
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- Rebelle Media co-founders Laura Lewis and Amanda Palley announced at SDCC 2026 that Sarah Adams' "When in Rome" series is the latest addition to their romance adaptation slate, joining their in-development adaptation of Christina Lauren's "The Paradise Problem".
- Rebelle Media's Laura Lewis said theatrical romance has dropped over 75% in the last 20 years — a gap she attributes to studios chasing marketing hooks rather than the chemistry and dialogue romance fans actually want.
- Magic Hour Entertainment co-founders Max Siemers and Tanner Anderson are developing Christina Lauren's "Love & Other Words," Ali Hazelwood's "Love, Theoretically" with Prime Video, and Colleen Hoover's "Heartbones" — using Siemers' earlier work on Netflix's "To All the Boys I Loved Before" trilogy as their production-quality benchmark.
- Christina Lauren's "In a Holidaze" is set to hit Netflix later this year as a film adapted by Tiffany Paulson, the author duo announced on the panel — 17 years after Hobbs and Billings first met in the SDCC Twilight: New Moon line.
- Panelists across authors and producers converged on chemistry as the single resource most underfunded in romance: Lauren Billings argued huge sci-fi budgets flow to special effects while rom-coms skip the eye-contact and tension beats, and Lewis pointed to "Off Campus" and "Heated Rivalry" as proof that invested creative teams outperform generic formulas.
- Max Siemers highlighted visual aesthetics as an under-loved element, noting that Nancy Meyers hired the DP from "Jurassic Park" for "The Parent Trap" and the DP from "Schindler's List" for "Little Giants" — and that the third "To All the Boys" production actually called the Empire State Building to match its real color palette in shots.
- Siemers also flagged a production-squeeze reality: "We're making less movies and TV shows today than we were 10 years ago during the streaming boom," with studios now greenlighting based on which top-tier male lead is available to start on a specific date.
Why it matters: Romance is 23% of all book sales but theatrically collapsed 75% over 20 years, per the panelists — a structural gap that newer production companies like Rebelle Media and Magic Hour Entertainment are positioning to fill by selling 'prestige' romance to studios and streamers. If their chemistry-and-aesthetics thesis wins over greenlighters at Paramount, Universal, and Netflix, it could shift how the industry budgets its lower-tier slates and which actors are willing to attach to the genre.
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