Anne Hathaway and Nicholas Galitzine’s age-gap romantic adventure “The Idea of You” attracted nearly 50 million worldwide viewers in its first two weeks on Prime Video, becoming Amazon MGM’s No. 1 romantic-comedy debut of all time, according to the studio.
As Amazon did not detail exactly what counts as a “view,” it should be noted that streaming viewership numbers self-reported by platforms still come with many caveats. Some brands solely report total minutes or hours watched, while others divide that total by each projects runtime to arrive at an estimated number of views. Streamers almost never disclose the exact number of viewers who watched the entirety of their titles, and as Amazon did not define their metric regarding “The Idea of You,” it is possible that a significant portion of the 50 million reporter viewers only watched a short piece of the movie.
“The Idea of You,” which premiered at SXSW and launched on Prime video on May 2, follows a 40-year-old single mom (Hathaway) who is swept up in whirlwind romance with a 24-year-old pop star (Galitzine). Michael Showalter directed and co-wrote the screenplay with Jennifer Westfeldt, based on the book by Robinne Lee.
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“The extraordinary reception of ‘The Idea of You’ has been thrilling — even leading up to the release, with its record-breaking trailer views to its chart-topping soundtrack,” said Julie Rapaport, head of film, production and development at Amazon MGM Studios. “And now, audiences have truly fallen for this film, and we could not be prouder of our stars Anne Hathaway and Nicholas Galitzine, the brilliant vision of Michael Showalter, and the rest of the enormously talented cast and filmmaking team who made this such a smashing success.”
Variety chief film critic Peter Debruge praised the film and the chemistry between its leads, writing in his review, “Hathaway’s rockin’ single-mom character doesn’t need a boyfriend, much less a boy-band fling to fulfill her. But her on-and-off romance with Galitzine’s smitten pop star feels like one for the ages.”
Rounding out the cast for the film are Ella Rubin, Annie Mumolo, Reid Scott, Perry Mattfeld, Jordan Aaron Hall, Mathilda Gianopoulos, Meg Millidge, Raymond Cham Jr., Jaiden Anthony, Viktor White and Dakota Adan. Producers for “The Idea of You” include Cathy Schulman, Gabrielle Union, Hathaway, Lee, Eric Hayes, Showalter and Jordana Mollick; executive producers are Douglas S. Jones, Jason Babiszewski, Westfeldt and Kian Gass.
