We like all kinds of movies. Even though we've not seen Star Wars (any of them, ever), we like action, sci-fi and anything even remotely apocalyptic. But more often than not, we watch movies when we're feeling kind-of crappy, and in those times, only one genre will do: the romantic comedy, otherwise known as the "chick flick." Anything with Catharine Keener tops our list, but sometimes we sink low, and it is a fact that more than one of the ladies who write for this blog love the Bridget Jones movies, so it's no surprise that we're totally fine with Hollywood's chick flick surge. But the movie makers already know they have an audience in women; they're looking to expand it—to the men.
In New York and other locations, two of the most successful directors of the form — Nora Ephron and P. J. Hogan — are currently shooting what might pass for a couple of next-generation chick flicks. But those involved seem determined to avoid having that classification hung on their films, even if it is rooted in honest observation.
Ah yes, chick flicks with a twist. Cooking? Possibly. But shopping?
Mr. Hogan, who directed the 1997 hit “My Best Friend’s Wedding,” starring Julia Roberts, is filming “Confessions of a Shopaholic,” with Isla Fisher in the lead role, for Touchstone Pictures, owned by the Walt Disney Company. The film is based on a literary series that began with the British publication of Sophie Kinsella’s novel with that title in 2000, about a financial journalist with relationship problems and a penchant for overspending.
But the movie is not just for women, the filmmakers insist. “We all have spending habits, a lot of us do,” said Jerry Bruckheimer, one of the film’s producers, speaking by telephone last week.
“If we do our job right, this could be another ‘Wedding Crashers,’ ” added Mr. Bruckheimer, best known for testosterone-fueled entertainments including “Bad Boys” and the “Pirates of the Caribbean” trilogy. He was referring to the 2005 comic hit that included Ms. Fisher, but actually starred Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson as a couple of playboys who cruise weddings for easy sex — really not the stuff of chick flicks.
Ms. Ephron, for her part, is shooting “Julie & Julia,” with Amy Adams and Meryl Streep, for Columbia Pictures. In a complex exercise, it is based on both the life of the cooking enthusiast Julia Child and the 2005 book of the same title by Julie Powell, who, stuck in place as an office temp as she approached 30, spent a year whipping up every recipe in Ms. Child’s “Mastering the Art of French Cooking.”
But that could be a guy thing, right? “We hope this will be a movie for everyone who likes eating,” said Laurence Mark (“Dreamgirls,” “Working Girl”), one of the film’s producers.
What say you, men?
[NYT: Wary Hollywood Plans More Chick Flicks (Hoping to Lure the Guys)]
