Wedding comedies, the male version.<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The other day I caught a trailer for Bride Wars, a film that stars Anne Hathaway and Kate Hudson as two friends who turn against each other when their\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2008\/11\/wedding-comedies-the-male-version.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Wedding comedies, the male version.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The other day I caught a trailer for Bride Wars, a film that stars Anne Hathaway and Kate Hudson as two friends who turn against each other when their\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2008\/11\/wedding-comedies-the-male-version.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"FilmChat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-11-25T18:58:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/_MwnH1kpbPRM\/SSzFdpp046I\/AAAAAAAACG0\/1SfnOwFL8F4\/s400\/iloveyouman-et.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Peter T. 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{"id":515,"date":"2008-11-25T18:58:00","date_gmt":"2008-11-25T18:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2008\/11\/wedding-comedies-the-male-version\/"},"modified":"2008-11-25T18:58:00","modified_gmt":"2008-11-25T18:58:00","slug":"wedding-comedies-the-male-version","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2008\/11\/wedding-comedies-the-male-version.html","title":{"rendered":"Wedding comedies, the male version."},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

$\"\"$ <\/a>
The other day I caught a trailer<\/a> for Bride Wars<\/a><\/i>, a film that stars Anne Hathaway and Kate Hudson as two friends who turn against each other when their weddings are scheduled for the exact same day. And I found myself wondering what the male equivalent of such a movie would be.<\/span><\/p>\n

In recent years, we have seen the rise of the \u201cbromance\u201d, the \u201c man-crush rom-com<\/a>\u201c, the buddy movie about two straight men whose relationship follows the same narrative contours as a typical romantic comedy. In movies like Wedding Crashers<\/i>, Superbad<\/i>, Role Models<\/a><\/i> and so on, two guys \u2014 or three, in the case of Pineapple Express<\/a><\/i> \u2014 start as friends, \u201cbreak up\u201d about 15 to 30 minutes before the end, and then come together in a climactic reconciliation. These men may or may not be involved in relationships with women, but ultimately, it is the affection between the men themselves that matters most.<\/p>\n

Watching the trailer for Bride Wars<\/i>, I was reminded of the upcoming Paul Rudd comedy I Love You, Man<\/a><\/i>. Unlike Bride Wars<\/i>, which is about two existing female friends who come to blows over a wedding date, I Love You, Man<\/i> is all about a recently engaged man who needs to find<\/i> a male friend to be his best man. (As Patrick Goldstein<\/a> recently summarized it, the movie is about \u201ca loner engaged to a nice girl\u201d who \u201cproceeds to go out on a series of male dates, hoping to find the right guy.\u201d) In one film, the women come apart over a wedding, while in the other film, the men come together.<\/p>\n

And so, watching the Bride Wars<\/i> trailer, I wondered what a movie about men<\/i> coming apart over a wedding might look like.<\/p>\n

Well, it looks like we might find out soon. Variety<\/a><\/i> reports that Universal Pictures has acquired the script for a film called Best Man-a-Thon<\/i>, which will concern \u201ca groom who\u2019s planning his wedding and his two buddies who battle to be best man.\u201d<\/p>\n

It may be noteworthy that Best Man-a-Thon<\/i> will concern not rival bridegrooms \u2014 which would provide a more exact parallel to Bride Wars<\/i> \u2014 but, rather, rival groomsmen. That may or may not reflect cultural assumptions about the differences between male and female attitudes towards weddings: the female movie focuses on a conflict over the \u201cspecial day\u201d, whereas the male movie has more to do with one\u2019s status within a given social group.<\/p>\n

In fact, Best Man-a-Thon<\/i> sounds kind of like it could be the \u201cbromance\u201d version of all those romantic comedies in which two women compete for a man\u2019s affections (or, alternatively, two men compete for a woman\u2019s affections).<\/p>\n

It will be interesting to see what aspects of that buddy triangle the movie emphasizes, and whether the film ends up looking more like the all-male version of Bridget Jones\u2019s Diary<\/i> (in which one groomsman is clearly \u201cright\u201d for the bridegroom while the other is not) or the all-male version of My Best Friend\u2019s Wedding<\/i> (in which one groomsman has to learn to \u201clet go\u201d of the bridegroom and accept his preference for the other groomsman).<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"