Weekend Preview: ‘You, Me & Tuscany’ Cracks Open the Romantic Genre Wars

The newfound consistent success of romantic drama literary adaptations has made it more difficult to properly project the rare theatrical rom com these days. Demographically, the target audiences may look similar. But Theatrical Intent can vary  wildly, making it difficult to compare.  Just as not every man will see every action movie, not every woman will see every romance-based film. Action fans and romance fans are the actual drivers of success for those genres. But while the former benefits from a plethora of direct audience level comps, romantic comedies are a different story.

To examine the actual audience potential of this week’s You, Me & Tuscany, we need to get surgical. That requires scoping out specific frames of the established romantic drama and comedy audiences to see if Tuscany matches, over- or underperforms either.

Immediately, similarities and discrepancies emerge when comparing Tuscany to recent rom-dram The Drama, rom-dram literary adaptation Regretting You (shoutout Colleen Hoover!), and the most recent traditional rom-com Solo Mio. 

Tuscany skews heavily female, even more so than the other comps outside of The Drama (that’s the Zendaya effect at work). However, unlike The Drama, Tuscany pulls in additional Awareness and Interest from the older female crowd, similar to Solo Mio. Taking a wider look: the overall ratio of male/female Interest and Intent, along with the conversion between the two,  more closely resembles the baselines ofRegretting You. Branching out even further to the closest pure comedy comp, One of Them Days, also shows more overlap and divergence. Tuscany boasts significantly higher Awareness towards its target female demographic while still maintaining similar Interest and Intent, but it also remains significantly behind for men of all ages. 

In trying to create a reasonable projection and audience understanding by finding “close enough” comps, the analysis results in a wide opening weekend box office range. As low as $6 million to as high as $21 million. Without a clearly defined audience, analysis through the usual audience comparison process becomes incomplete. So, like any good rom-com, analysis must go through its own journey to find “the one” (in this case, the best audience analysis).

In order to narrow down a practical range for performance, analysis must focus on the audience for Tuscany itself rather than its direct comparison to genre audiences alone. For instance, focusing on  who actually intends to see Tuscany in theaters reveals  more practical audience information when projecting turnout.

Here, in a direct breakdown of Opening Weekend Intent across The Drama, One of Them Days, and Tuscany, clearer audience clusters form. General population, women, and even frequent moviegoers all fall within the same vicinity  within margin of error. 

However, branching out into more specific target audiences, potential advantages for Tuscany are clear. Among Black female moviegoers, both frequent but especially infrequent, Tuscany holds a significant Intent advantage over The Drama while looking more like comedy One of Them Days. In other words, it can play like a broader comedy rather than be restricted to solely a romantic drama genre audience. 

Absent a more direct audience comparison, analysis needs to broaden to reflect the tangible  audience at hand rather than trying to force it to fit another genre’s shape. Comparing Tuscany to fellow rom-com Solo Mio points to a likely muted performance, while observing the similar patterns to romantic dramas and traditional comedies help to show some additional potential. 

By getting into the weeds of the audience, including more specific target compositions and the broad attraction of the romantic comedy genre to infrequent moviegoers, the gaps in audience understanding begin to disappear. Although not likely to stray too far from the openings of One of Them Days, The Drama, Regretting You, or even Solo Mio, Tuscany shows distinctions of its own romantic comedy audience to pave the way to become the new go-to comp for future romantic comedies.