Jonah Feingold Hopes To Create The ‘Blumhouse For Romantic Comedies’

Romantical founder Jonah Feinfold

Courtesy of Nathan Lawer Yolar

In 2003, 20th Century Fox (now 20th Century Studios) released Just Married, a romantic comedy directed by an up-and-coming Shawn Levy, who had just come off Big Fat Liar. Starring Ashton Kutcher and the late Brittany Murphy, the film grossed an impressive $101 million globally against a modest budget of $18 million.

A month later, Paramount Pictures debuted Donald Petrie’s How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. Made on $50 million, the rom-com featuring Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey netted almost $180 million worldwide.

Just two years after that, the Will Smith-fronted Hitch (directed by Andy Tennant and distributed by Sony) nabbed over $370 million against a $70 million budget.

What happened the heavy-hitting rom-coms of yesteryear?

“The reason I feel that they no longer exist is sort of a result of the streaming method, which is to say you can now find these movies in large access and in large scale on your TV screen,” filmmaker Jonah Feingold recently told me over Zoom. “But they also used to have higher budgets, so people don’t know how to make them for less anymore.

He continued: “[They] used those budgets to attract movie stars, à la Kate Hudson, Matthew McConaughey, and Will Smith; or Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn back in the day. Whoever the big movie stars were at the time. There was also major talent behind camera—Nora Ephron, Rob Reiner, Billy Wilder, Nancy Myers. [Myers’] movies would cost $150 million to make, but they would also gross $300 million worldwide. The Holiday was a huge hit, so was Something’s Gotta Give. And because the budgets of mid-tier comedies don’t exist in the theatrical space anymore, it’s become harder.”

Feingold is looking to change all that with his new production banner, Romantical, which he hopes will become the Blumhouse equivalent for romantic comedies. “Romantical is as much a film studio as it is an ecosystem,” he proclaimed. “It’s a new wave film studio. It’s bringing back the romantic comedy.”

The overall goal is to produce high concept rom-coms at reasonable price points before “taking theatrical swings,” he explained. “Using organic marketing and direct-to-consumer marketing. Having concept help sell [the feature] and not overspending on movie stars. Trying to bring back nostalgic romantic comedy storytelling that there is clearly a hunger for … and sort of change the business model, similar to what Blumhouse did for horror.”

As for the profit side of things, he likened Romantical’s back end benefits to Ben Affleck and Matt Damon’s Artists Equity, stating that both cast and crew will own a certain percentage of the end products. “My thesis is basically if you give ownership and you really focus on the high concept element and a larger, long-term benefit for the cast and the crew, then you can go back to making great romantic comedies,” he added. “At some point, it’s not about the money up front—it’s about the long-term value.”

Feingold’s first major title produced under Romantical is 31 Candles, a quirky and heartwarming film centered around a belated bar mitzvah (think Nathan Silver’s Between the Temples). In addition to writing and editing, Feingold also leads the project as Leo Kadner, a hopeless New York City romantic taking on the Jewish rite of passage in order to get close to an old summer camp flame, Eva Shapiro (Sarah Coffey), who also happens to be his Torah tutor. The much more personal project began to take shape after Feingold wrapped production on his third directorial effort, EXmas, an Amazon Freevee original starring Leighton Meester and Robbie Amell.

“I was actually having a conversation with my composer [Grant Fonda] that I work with on every movie, and I was torn between two films,” Feingold remembered. “He said, ‘What’s the movie you have to make now that you couldn’t make any other time?’ And I was like, ‘Well, obviously the one where I play a 30-year-old having a bar mitzvah.’ I wrote it, went to a group of investors, and started casting it during the strikes. We had everything going against us and, ultimately, the independent comedy prevailed.”

While Feingold’s budget was indie-sized, his roster of onscreen talent was not, with big names like Jackie Sandler (You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah) and Caroline Aaron (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel) signing on to play his mother and grandmother, respectively.

“All these actors did it for the SAG ultra-low contract,” he revealed. “They did it because they connected to the material, or because I wouldn’t stop bugging them and saying, ‘Hey, I promise I’m not going to waste your time. You’re going to look great. It’s going to be funny. We’re going to have a lot of fun.’ And that’s, I believe, how we did it.”

The film will begin playing on the big screen at Manhattan’s Quad Cinema Friday, Nov. 7 (click here for tickets) before spreading to Westchester County, Del Ray, Florida, and Los Angeles. Feingold hopes to slowly build up word of mouth, citing his friend Daniel Robbins’ Jewish comedy, Bad Shabbos, as a prime example of how to do it properly.

“I’ve decided to do a scattered release so I can be there at every screening with cast and crew,” Feingold said. “Make it feel like an event, make it feel special to get people to theaters. You can’t just dump your movie and expect people to go see it. You need to engage at the micro-level to have macro impact.”

Looking ahead, Feingold is deep into the screenwriting process for a movie entitled The Young at Heart, which he describes as a mix of Penny Marshall’s Big and Nancy Meyers’ Something’s Gotta Give. The plot revolves around a pair of 70-year-old divorced parents who suddenly wake up as 20-year-olds one morning and “must figure out if they want to go through life again together, or if they want to do something different.”

Feingold is also gearing up for the 2026 release of Busboys, which he directed from a script written by David Spade and Theo Von, who star as a pair of busboys aspiring to be waiters. “It’s very silly, but again, made very independently and under a new model,” Feingold explained. “Which is exciting for the mid-tier comedy.”

Given the fact that he’s now worked with Jackie Sandler and David Spade in quick succession, I joked about how he’s slowly making his way through Adam Sandler’s inner circle. “I’m just trying to get to Adam!” Feingold said with a smile before sharing that the Sand Man did wish him luck on 31 Candles over FaceTime before filming began.

“Then he watched the cut of the movie and said some very kind things,” he concluded. “It’s cool to have those kind of mentors. It’s surreal when you talk to people that you grew up watching.”