Diane Keaton Is Proof That Hollywood Needs Rom-Coms Again

The death of Diane Keaton last week prompted a groundswell of online affection — the kind of shared grief and celebration that can only come with the passing of a true icon. But it wasn’t just a matter of saluting her style or lauding her talent, though those elements were certainly present. Her passing felt personal to many, because she seemed less like a distant star and more like someone people actually knew.

And why is that? There are plenty of possible explanations, but I lean toward the simplest one: because some of her most beloved roles were in romantic comedies, a genre that lives and dies by the empathy and rooting interest we feel for its leads. Yet Hollywood studios have largely stepped away from releasing them theatrically.

So when people ask who the next Diane Keaton might be, it’s hard to know — because the romantic comedy has become somewhat of an endangered species. As audiences revisit her films and share their favorite characters, her death underscores how studios have abandoned a genre that once defined moviegoing for millions of viewers.

You can still find rom-coms, of course. Netflix Inc. has picked up the baton and run with it with one-off buzz hits such as Set It Up, Your Place or Mine and Always Be My Maybe and franchises such as The Kissing Booth and To All the Boys films. Amazon.com Inc has followed its lead, producing made-for-Prime titles such as You’re Cordially Invited and Shotgun Wedding. And while streamers tend to prefer series to movies, it’s easy to imagine that Nobody Wants This or The Summer I Turned Pretty not only could have been, but likely would have been, stand-alone theatrical releases 20 or 30 years ago