It’s so wild that, within twenty or so years of the modern romantic comedy’s high-water mark (this will be controversial, but 2005 was an exceptionally profitable year for the genre), it’s generally disappeared from the multiplex. Like every genre, it goes through waxes and wains in popularity depending on the moment, but it felt like such a stable bet that it’d never quite disappear from screens altogether. Streaming, though — streaming made it ubiquitous, and there’s a direct correlation between Netflix subscriptions and the box-office revenue of these particular films. Remarkably, the leading players in bringing this genre back to the screen are boutique indie studios like A24, which are often subsidized by the numerous horror features competing for your attention. Hence, Materialists: what would have once been bread-and-butter shit for studios in years past is second-fiddle fare.
That, we guess, is how you beat the streamers. A24 let Celine Song, director of the critical darling Past Lives, go nuts with casting. For Materialists, Song has tapped Dakota Johnson, Pedro Pascal, and Chris Evans for a who-will-she-choose bit of counterprogramming running against the summer blockbuster stream. A24 dropped a new, uh, “priceless” trailer for the film on Tuesday, and it looks like it’ll be a lot of fun.
Peep it:
Here’s a brief and altogether unsatisfying synopsis:
“A young, ambitious New York City matchmaker (Johnson) finds herself torn between the perfect match (Pascal) and her imperfect ex (Evans).”
So, yeah, it’s gender-flipped Hitch with two Eva Mendeses. This sounds like it could be a pretty good time, honestly.
Anyway, you’ll find out for yourself who Johnson winds up with when Materialists hits theaters on June 13. Honestly, we’re rooting for all of them because asking us to choose between Pedro Pascal and Chris Evans is like asking us to choose between chocolate and peanut butter. Great on their own, better together, is what we say.