A movie to root for: MARRY ME

Last week Universal gave us the first trailer for MARRY ME, which features two of our greatest stars in the midst of mid-career revivals. Two years ago, Jennifer Lopez came within an inch of securing her first Oscar nomination for HUSTLERS. At the same time, Owen Wilson has made an indelible mark in LOKI and, recently, as the host of SNL. 

One look at the trailer, and you can see that we’re dealing with real pros here. Few people can project everyday approachability while being a glamorous force-of-nature like Jennifer Lopez, while the ageless Wilson, with his head full of tousled blonde waves, is giving Robert Redford vibes. 

With proven track records in the romantic comedy space, both are playing to their strengths with MARRY. And this is precisely the time when we need a romantic comedy to work. 

The pandemic-era box office has been driven by spectacles like SHANG-CHI AND THE LEGEND OF THE TEN RINGS, NO TIME TO DIE, DUNE, and GHOSTBUSTERS: AFTERLIFE. Films on a smaller scale have yet to pull in the big grosses. 

On top of that, MARRY targets women and older audiences, which we know have shown greater hesitancy to return to theaters in the COVID era. Can Lopez and Wilson bring these audiences back to the theater? We certainly hope so. 

What does The Quorum say? Here’s the good news. MARRY is on the rise. We have been tracking MARRY for over a year now. During that run, awareness hovered in the low teens. But since the trailer came out (grey bar), awareness has doubled from 13 to 26. 

We see the same thing on the interest side. After languishing below 5.0, the interest score for MARRY has jumped to 5.5. 

Romantic comedies may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but for a healthy, thriving box office, we should all rally behind this one. Hopefully, this upward momentum will continue.