Weekend Preview: ‘Reminders of Him’ Keeps the Colleen Hoover Train Rolling

Horror has made huge comebacks within the last few years, but another subgenre has also carved out its own corner of success thanks to  its own dedicated audience: the romantic drama. From Fifty Shades of Grey and Where the Crawdads Sing to It Ends With Us and Materialists, romantic drama fans (and especially dramatic book fans) can range from a reliable turnout audience to a powerful force driving a huge box office hit. With another romantic drama adapting another Colleen Hoover novel releasing this weekend, how defined is this audience, and where does Reminders of Him rank?

Consistent Interest profiles, rather than audience demographics, have become the new standard for performance projection when it comes to recent romantic dramas and dramatic book adaptations.  The below chart highlights the topline metrics for recent romantic dramas on each of their Mondays before release:

The graph may show diverting paths overall as each film, while successful at the box office, performed differently. But the underlying information becomes the basis for the genre’s  audience as well as indicators for in-genre overperformance. For instance, romantic dramas over-index with female audiences and rarely see overall Interest surpass the lower 40% range at most (with general scores usually sitting in the 30s). Theatrical Intent typically skews lower than Interest across all genres, resulting in 10%-plus gaps between Interest for romantic dramas. 

Here, the standard new romantic drama audience baseline pattern emerges, as exemplified by Materialists and Regretting You. Both follow nearly identical patterns (within margin-of-error) for all metrics and the relational dynamics between them. Regretting You, boosted by its pre-established book audience, audience-friendly PG-13 rating, and last-minute engagement from  women under-35 wound  up overtaking Materialists in Awareness en route to slightly stronger turnout from its target audience. This resulted in a modestly higher opening weekend and $10 million more over the course of its domestic run.

As for the higher performers, the pattern still remains the backbone of performance. Wuthering Heights, maintaining similar Interest and Intent levels as the baseline romantic dramas, leveraged its perfect Valentine’s Day Weekend release date to elevate the overall female Awareness beyond a romantic drama and closer to an event-level film. 

The Housemaid, on the other hand, built on top of the baseline in every segment possible, including increasing all metrics among all men about 10% or more from the baseline average. Coupled  with increasing Interest (+5%) and Intent (+8%) among all women, it’s clear to see how the film opened to $19 million, legged it out to nearly $125 million domestic, and will likely wind up as . the highest worldwide grosser on the list.

From modest yet successful performers like Materialists or Regretting You to megahits and event films like The Housemaid or Wuthering Heights, the baseline for the audience remains consistent. This puts the onus on each individual film to build upon that foundation.  

The patterns hold strong for this weekend’s Reminders of Him, which is tracking right alongside Materialists and Regretting You in the core metrics:

At first, this match may suggest a similar $11 million-$13 million opening. But, like with The Housemaid, certain momentum hints indicate a possible overperformance.

Although awareness more closely resembles fellow Hoover adaptation Regretting You, Reminders of Him’s Interest and Intent breakdown are closer to  the more male-friendly Materialists(6% higher Interest and 8% higher Intent for men overall than Regretting You). With a slightly broader appeal still tied with its more audience-friendly PG-13 rating and built-in book audience, Reminders of Him has the potential to grow upon the baseline audience while remaining a definitive illustration of the romantic drama audience.

Understanding emerging audience patterns in real time for a rising subgenre becomes a new key in understanding what’s actually capturing audiences’ attention and drive. More importantly, it helps future projects and campaigns understand the audience. It differentiates between those who are actually interested and intending to see the films rather than standard broad “female moviegoers” or “Booktok fans” that studios can only hope will turn it into the next It Ends With Us. 

With It Ends With Us, Regretting You, The Housemaid, and now Reminders of Him this new trend is not slowing down. Instead, it’s  carving out a potentially consistent and successful audience niche of its own. Verity, here we come!