Summary
Isn’t It Romanticis getting a horror-themed sequel. The 2019 movie starred Rebel Wilson as Natalie, an architect living in New York who finds herself trapped in a rom-com and forced to live out the tropes of the genre in her life. The star-studded cast of the movie also included Liam Hemsworth, Adam DeVine, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Betty Gilpin, and Bowen Yang.Isn’t It Romanticreviewswere mixed-to-positive, with a 69% Rotten Tomatoes critic score being undercut by an audience score of 51% and a lukewarm box office total of $48.8 million against its $31 million budget.
PerDeadline, New Line is putting a horror movie-themedIsn’t It Romanticsequel into early development, which would presumably center on the lead character becoming trapped in a horror movie. The follow-up,titledIsn’t It Scary, hasLook Both Waysscreenwriter April Prosser in talks to pen the script. At the time of writing, nobody has been officially attached to the project, and as such, it is unknown if the movie is intended to center on Wilson reprising the role of Natalie, or an entirely new character.
The Horror Version Of Isn’t It Romantic Already Happened
While a years-later sequel toIsn’t It Romantictaking on a new genre is a unique prospect, it may not behoove the upcoming project to take on the horror genre next. This is the case becausethe horror version of the movie has already been made. The 2015 meta horror-comedyThe Final Girls, which only had a limited theatrical run, had a very similar setup, involving a young woman and her friends who find themselves trapped in the fictional 1980s slasherCamp Bloodbath.
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The movie has an even more important connection toIsn’t It Romanticbeyond boasting a similar premise. Boththe 2019 romantic comedy andThe Final Girlswere directed by Todd Strauss-Schulson, though they had different screenwriters. Strauss-Schulson, who had previously directedA Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmasin 2011, brought his signature visual aesthetic to both titles, differentiating the real worlds from the movie worlds by utilizing a fantastical aesthetic with heavily saturated colors and stylized designs.
The Final Girlswas written by M.A. Fortin and Joshua John Miller, whileIsn’t It Romanticwas written by Erin Cardillo, Dana Fox, and Katie Silberman.
One other issue is the fact that theIsn’t It Romanticsequel would likely pale in comparison toThe Final Girls. TheNina Dobrev horror moviefeatured a strong emotional core with a story about a young woman grappling with her grief over the death of her mother. WhileIsn’t It Scaryhas not yet been written, so it has a chance of finding an equally strong hook, the previous installment in the franchise leaned more heavily on the comedy than on sentiment, so its sequel still seems unlikely to follow in the 2015 movie’s footsteps.
Isn’t It Romantic
Cast
For a long time, Natalie, an Australian architect living in New York City, had always believed that what she had seen in rom-coms is all fantasy. But after thwarting a mugger at a subway station only to be knocked out while fleeing, Natalie wakes up and discovers that she is self-aware of her existence in a “PG-13 Universe” and must escape every cliché in order to finally fall in love and achieve the happily ever after that will bring her back to reality.
