Kate Hudson is an icon of the romantic-comedy genre, but her movies weren’t exactly embraced by film critics. “How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days” has a 42% on Rotten Tomatoes, for instance. Then there’s “Fools Gold,” “Bride Wars” and “Something Borrowed,” all of which have Rotten Tomatoes scores of 15% or below. Roger Ebert infamously wrote in his “How to Lose a Guy” review that he wished to place Hudson and co-star Matthew McConaughey in the “witness protection program” because of how bad he thought the movie was.
“If I were taken off the movie beat and assigned to cover the interior design of bowling alleys, I would have some idea of how they must have felt as they made this film,” Ebert added.
Hudson recently spoke to Entertainment Weekly about these negative reviews of her rom-com favorites, and she noted that opinions have changed over time. Plus, she was never making any of these movies for the critical acclaim anyway.
“I think the critic has changed,” Hudson said. “In the movie world, critics who are looking at things with a certain microscope might sometimes not be looking at it as what people need. The critic has changed, meaning the whole world is a critic now. When you’re making a movie to feel a certain way, I call it a spectrum: Who are you making them for? Are you making it for the critic? Are you making it for the people? You try to make the best movie possible, telling the story that you’re trying to tell. If you’re trying to think about it as who you’re trying to please, you’re probably going to miss.”
“If I was set out to make ‘Bride Wars’ or ‘Something Borrowed’ to be some critically acclaimed, Oscar campaign-worthy film, it would be a very different movie,” Hudson added. “I also think people don’t realize how hard it is to get a movie like that made and enjoyed.”
Hudson said during an appearance on “Watch What Happens Live” last year that she’d open to starring in a “How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days” sequel, saying: “All that matters would be the script and if Matthew and I were into the script. I think we’re both totally open; it has just never happened.”
While rom-com movies have pivoted mostly to streaming platforms in recent years, the genre proved its box office staying power with the $220 million global haul for Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell’s “Anyone But You.” Hudson said on “The View” last year that part of the reason for the rom-com’s decline in recent years is because “it’s hard to get male movie stars to make rom-coms.”
“That’s a big part of the equation … is to have that event,” she said. “If we can get more Marvel guys like … hey, come to do a rom-com! That’s part of the formula, too. That event.”