Gluck Cut 'So Much Nudity' From One Night Only
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- Will Gluck directed 'One Night Only,' a rom-com where premarital sex is legal one night a year, starring Monica Barbaro as an aspiring singer and Callum Turner as a pizza shop owner across 12 hours in New York City
- Gluck says he cut 'so much nudity' from the film after test screenings showed audiences physically reacting to on-screen sex — 'they turn to who they're with' — and attributes the broader shift to intimacy becoming a private act since phone access
- Gluck coined the term 'WOM-com' (word-of-mouth comedy) after his 2023 sleeper hit 'Anyone But You' proved that audience discovery, not marketing, is what cuts through for non-superhero theatrical releases
- Gluck pushes back on internet speculation that fake in-film ads for Duolingo, Red Bull, Dunkin', and Equinox were paid placements, saying his team had to beg companies for permission to twist their branding because 'not every corporate America consumer product was into this idea'
- Monica Barbaro's character was rewritten as a singer with stage fright after casting because 'she has the best voice,' and Callum Turner spent five days training at a real pizzeria; Gluck notes pizza congeals too fast to film well
- Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell make unexpected cameo-style appearances after their schedules blocked traditional cameos, with Gluck confirming he secured their permission
Why it matters: Gluck is betting that theatrical rom-coms survive through word-of-mouth discovery rather than marketing — a model that worked for 'Anyone But You' but requires keeping films in theaters long enough for audiences to find them. His decision to strip nudity despite filming extensive on-street sex scenes reflects how the industry is recalibrating shared-viewing spaces for a phone-era audience. His free-product-ads clarification also rebuts a widespread online assumption that brands paid to be parodied in the film.
